


Into the Unknown

by RikuKingdomHearts3



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fantasy, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, MerMay, MerMay 2019, Merpeople, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Shounen-ai, mermaid au, merman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-03-10 00:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 42,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18927835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RikuKingdomHearts3/pseuds/RikuKingdomHearts3
Summary: Every since they were young, mermen Sora and Riku were told to never get close to the surface. But there are times when children are a little too curious. Consequences happen and Sora becomes fearful of the surface. But when Riku is captured by humans and taken away to the surface, it is up to Sora to be brave adventure up and out there in order to get his best friend back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So hey crossposting another story here with Fanfiction.net. Name on there is just Riku Kingdom Hearts.  
> But this is my MerMay story I got, cause it was random, but I wanted to write it. Enjoy!

Out in the ocean, far below the surface, swam two young mermen. Merboys would be better to describe them as they were still young, with one being nine-years-old and the other was ten. They swam around happily as they chased one another in a game of tag.

The younger of the two had brown spiky hair, that seemed to spike out in nearly every direction, and deep blue eyes. The deep blue in his eyes was a bear perfect match to the blue of his scale covered tail.

The other boy on the other hand, had hair that was a light silver, with a tint of purple. His hair though was straight and reached a little past his shoulders, with some short bangs nearly falling over his eyes. Though under the water his hair flowed easily so it was hard to tell how long it actually was. His eyes were a light turquoise though unlike the younger boy, his eyes and tail did not match. Instead his tail more closely matched to his hair, being a light silvery-purple.

The two continued to swim around for a while, laughing and smiling at each other as they tried to catch each other. Eventually the bruttent slowed down and came to a complete stop. The other boy looked at his friend with a curious thought and swam over to him.

“What’s up Sora? Don’t tell me you’ve worn yourself out already,” the boy said slightly teasingly.

“No it’s not that. I just wonder… about the surface,” Sora said as he stared up.

Though they were quite a ways away from the surface, the sunlight still streamed down onto the water, making the water glistern and shimmer. Though it was not flat out forbidden, the merfolk always warned their young of getting too close to the surface. There was always many dangerous things out there as well as dangerous and evil humans. Humans who want to hurt and hunt them down. But even with that knowledge that those things were out there, Sora still found himself curious.

“But you know we shouldn’t go up there. Everyone always warns about it.”

“I know Riku, but we have also heard stories from others who have told us cool stories of what happens on land,” Sora replied as he looked to Riku.

“Yeah, but how much can you really just a lazy kid like Demyx? You really think he is telling the truth about exploring the surface world? That his sister knows magic to do something like that?” Riku asked while raising an eyebrow.

“I believe him! And I believe Namine can do that magic! And my grandma has also told me cool stories of the surface. It all sounds so cool! So I wonder sometimes… how bad can it really be?” Sora asked as he slowly moved a little upwards, closer to the surface.

“We don’t know though! That’s why everyone warns us to stay away from there. If there are bad humans around they’ll hunt us,” Riku replied quickly as he grabbe Sora’s wrist. “Let’s just head back, okay?”

“Come on Riku,” Sora said, pouting slightly. “Just a peak? Just one look up at the surface and then we head back.”

“I don’t know…” Riku said as he glanced up at the simmering top of the waters. “I really don’t think it is safe.”

Sora pulled his hand away from Riku and started to swim up a little more. “Well you can wait down here as I go check it out then.”

Without waiting for a response for Riku, Sora started to swim closer and closer to the surface. As he got closer he could see that in various areas in the distance were large dark objects floating in the water. He knew what these were though as he had learned about the objects humans created to traverse along the waters. They were ships, or boats. What they were in specifics Sora didn’t know, but he knew it had to be one of those two.

He slowed down as he got closer to the top of the water. The sunlight was much more vibrant now and the water seemed a lit brighter than before. Sora watched carefully at the waters around him. Never before had he ever come so close to the surface, but now here he was. He never had felt so excited before that also was mixed with a little bit of fear. He didn’t know what exactly everything looked like up there, he only knew what he heard from stories.

With a deep inhale and exhale Sora moved a little more until his head broke the water’s surface and he felt air rush again his face. He froze up for a moment from the sudden force of air, but soon relaxed once he figure out what it was.

_“This is what wind is then. Kind of like a strong current or even air pockets,”_ Sora commented to himself as he started to look around.

There was some ships far out from him, but he could easily see that they were large in size. Aside from that he looked to his right and saw the land. He had always known that there was a human town nearby, but now he was finally getting to see it. It was far larger then he ever thought it could be. But before he could really take the time to examine everything, a voice cut him from his thoughts.

“Look there! It’s a mermaid!”

Sora froze up as he slowly turned around to see that a ship was several feet away from him and slowly approaching. He had been so distracting with what was in front and to the sides of him that he completely forget to check behind him. There was several human men standing on the small, metal ship, and they all were staring right at Sora.

“But it looks like a boy,” one of the men commented. “Shouldn’t it be a mer… boy?”

“What do I care! Boy, girl, whatever! Just get the harpoon set up and fire at him,” another of the men said, who Sora assumed was the captain of the ship.

Sora continued to stay frozen as he watched as two of the men ran over to a large looking machine set up on the side of the ship. They stared to angle it at him and turn it on, a slow humming started to come it as if it was powering up. A small glowing light appeared on Sora’s chest as he started to feel the panic rising in his chest.

A second later he was pulled underwater, and Sora saw that Riku had grabbed on to him. But what happened next, it all felt it happened too fast, and yet at the same time felt as slow as possible.

He first felt Riku pulling him back under the water, but then he was shoved to the side. As Sora fell back after Riku let go, he heard Riku cry out in pain.

Sora blinked, trying to understand what had happened, but once he saw it, he immediately felt sick. He he stared at the sight in front of him, red started to spread out through the water around him.

Sora could feel his heart racing now as he saw Riku’s face scrunched up in pain. He tried to move or even call out to Riku, but he found himself unable to do any of that. His face paled as the situation truly started to dawn on him. His choice has lead to his. This was his consequence. He could only watch in fear as his best friend slowly sank down, blood pouring from a wound on the side of his tail.

Finally though Sora got back in control of himself and started to swim down to Riku, reaching his hand out to grab him. “Riku!!” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter 2 for now. I'm still getting use to Ao3 so I am trying out the multi chapters part. But anyways enjoy the chapter! And this chapter as my tags state will have some shounen-ai and fluff.

Sora’s eyes shot open and he let out a large gasp. He sat up and found himself in his room, right on his bed. Sora let out a small whimper as he rubbed his hands against his face. He wanted to cry over the fact he had that same nightmare again, but he knew it would get him nowhere. Crying to himself or thinking about it all alone never helped him.

Nine years later and he still had a nightmare from that time. He almost wanted to think he was pathetic for having a nightmare like that, but he again had to remind himself not to think that. He knew better than that at least after all this time.

He glanced to his window and looked outside, seeing that the waters above were still dark, meaning it was still the late hours of the night. There was that and as well as the fact that the village coral lights were still off. The lights were to better light the village as the sunlight from the surface could only do so much since the the village was deep under water. Sora while knew it was late at night and that everyone would be asleep, he knew he had to just get out of the house for now. And there was only one place he knew he would go.

He saw out of his open window and headed through the quiet village, only focused on getting to his destination. Eventually he reached it, just half way through the village. He swam up to one of the windows and peered inside. There he saw Riku fast asleep on his bed. Now nine years later, Riku had grown out his hair more. It now flowed half way down his back, and more of his bangs flowed his face.

Sora breathed in slowly as he swam into Riku’s room and looked over at him. He only waited a minute before he poked Riku in the shoulder. “Riku… Hey Riku…” he whispered quietly so he wouldn’t wake up anyone else in the house.

Riku stirred after a moment and opened his eyes, blinking them a few times until he focused on Sora. “Hm.. what? Sora? What are you doing here? Isn’t it… still night time?”

Sora averted his eyes as he let out a sigh. “Just wanted to check on you…”

Riku sat up slightly, taking note of Sora’s expression. “Something’s bothering you, right?”

Sora nodded, but chose not to look back at Riku. He felt a bit uneasy from what had happened before and wasn’t sure how long he could currently look at Riku without breaking down. But he knew at least he could tell Riku. “I had the nightmare again… about that day.”

Riku frowned slightly. He had expected the reason to be that, but he wasn’t upset at the fact that Sora had dreamt about it again. He was sad to see how much it still hurt Sora. How much it seemed to weight down in his heart was obviously from his expression. Carefully Riku placed a hand on Sora’s arm, hoping to once again do whatever he could to comfort his friend.

“Sora, it’s been nine years since then. Everything that happened is long in the past. Besides you know I survived, I’m right here to prove it.”

“But it’s still there though… the permanent reminder of that time…” Sora said, only slightly moving his eyes to look up at Riku.

Riku gently ran his other hand over his tail, glancing down at it. “It’s only a scar… could have been a lot worse. It healed though, that’s what matters.”

Sora finally had enough courage to look at Riku’s tail, though a uneasy feeling formed in his stomach as he did so. While the harpoon had not fully struck Riku, it did deeply cut into the side of his tail, just below his thigh. There had been a lot of blood loss, but Sora had managed to get Riku back to the village just in time to save him. But even though the wound was healed, it was not left without a scar. A large jagged scar now was on the side of his tail, and was no longer any scales in that area, only a light and faint purplish color. It was rather noticeable due to the large size of it and how off it looked to have a patch without scales on his tail.

“But… your tail. I ruined your beautiful tail… it’s my fault…”

Riku started to gently rub Sora’s arm as he shook his head. “You didn’t ruin anything. Come on Sora, stop blaming yourself over this. You know nobody blames you for what happened. My parents don’t blame you, they thanked you for bringing me back as quick as you could.”

Sora lowered his head again, trying to contain the emotions that were building up inside of him. “But I blame myself. If I had just listened to you… if I had not been so stupid…”

“Stop it Sora!” Riku shouted in a whisper, trying not to raise his voice too loudly. He leaned forward and grabbed onto Sora and pulled him in close. “Stop bashing yourself over this. I hate seeing you depreciate yourself like this.”

Sora let out a shaky sigh as he rested his head against Riku’s chest. Slowly he wrapped his arms around his friend and closed his eyes. “B-But why? Why don’t you hate me? I screwed up back then… You could have died… I could have lost you.”

Riku started to rubbed his hands across Sora’s back, shushing him softly. “Relax Sora. You know I would never hate you. You were only nine years old, you didn’t know any better. What does matter is that we are both still alive. We’re right here together, and I am not ever going to hate you. You are my best friend, even if you are a bit of a dork sometimes. I love you Sora, so there is no way I could ever think of hating you. You got that?”

Sora sniffled as he listened carefully to each and every word Riku had to say. Though he could feel his cheeks warm up from the compliments, he ended up letting out a small sob of relief. “Th-Thank you Riku. Thank you so much.”

Riku closed his eyes as he nodded. “Of course. I’m always here if you need me.”

There was a pause before the two let go each other and looked into each others eyes. Sora sighed happily as he knew that Riku would never look down at him or hate. Sora had just lost himself there for a moment in his own doubt and fears. It had happened before, but his mind was clear now and he remembered how much Riku cared for him.

“Do you wanna stay for the rest night?” Riku asked after a moment. “If you still need some comfort that is.”

Smiling back, Sora leaned forward and rested his forehead against Riku’s. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

Riku smiled back as he chuckled. He wrapped his arms around Sora once more and pulled him into a hug as he laid back down on the bed. They laid down on their sides as Riku, who was the taller of the two, rested his head gently on top of Sora’s head. Their tails gently brushed up against each other as they both relaxed, slowly giving back into sleep.

“I love you too Riku. I’m glad you still do care for me,” Sora whispered to Riku as he could feel his eyes growing heavy.

Riku moved one of his hands to place behind Sora’s head. He gently ruffled Sora’s hair as he smiled. “I always have and always will care for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that wraps up a fluffy (with a side of angst) chapter 2. Hope you guys enjoyed, thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I gotta try to catch this up to my crosspost on FF, espcially since this is a MerMay story and I wanna try to finish by May. Also I hope that the fluff SoRiku I wrote last chapter was nice enough, I never really have done stuff like that before. And there shall be more fluff this chapter :D  
> But thank you all so far for reading this.

Sora stirred the next morning as the faint bits of sunlight from the surface streamed down into the waters below. Though the most notable thing to wake him up was the coral lights spread throughout the village. Sora remained asleep though, unfazed by the light starting to shine into the bedroom. Riku on the other hand groaned as he blinked a few times to adjust his eyes. He glanced down next to him and saw how peaceful Sora was sleeping.

He chuckled quietly. “Such a heavy sleeper when it comes to waking up naturally.”

After a moment he reached forward and ruffled Sora’s hair. “Hey Sora, wake up.”

Sora mumbled something incoherent, but did not open his eyes. Riku thought for a moment before chuckling. He leaned a bit closer to Sora and poked him on the forehead. “You gotta get up sometime, you know.”

Sora hummed quietly for a moment. He then shifted slightly, but still did not open his eyes. “Don’tgottadoanything…” he mumbled his words all together, too tired to even care to speak normally.

“I’m not going to give up though,” Riku replied as he poked Sora’s forehead again.

Sora scrunched up his face and swatted away Riku’s hand. He then flipped over onto his other side and seemingly tried to fall back asleep. Riku on the other hand sighed with a smile as placed his arms underneath Sora. Slowly he picked up Sora into his arms and held him close, holding in him a way that their faces were close together. He then leaned forward and for briefly placed his lips against Sora’s cheek.

Sora’s eyes shot wide opened as he stared at Riku, his cheeks turning slightly red. “Aw come on Riku, why do you have to do that?”

“Cause I know it’s the easiest way to wake you up,” Riku replied as he let go of Sora, who quickly swam over to the other side of the room, hoping the blushing his cheeks would fade.

“Well it worked, I’m awake.” Sora waited a moment before turning back to Riku.

Though he momentarily glanced at Riku’s tail again. Now that it was day time and light was streaming into the room, it made it a little more noticeable. Though Sora breathed in slowly, he knew he had to stop worrying about Riku. He was fine after all. Sora knew he would managed to get over this one day, but there was still currently days where it haunted him more than others. But he tried to shake those remaining thoughts, and move onto better things.

“So now what should we do?”

“Hm, well after we get something to eat, maybe we could go out and explore some of the northern coral reefs? See if there is anything interesting there today,” Riku suggestion.

Sora’s face lit up with excitement, happy at the idea of going out to explore and adventure. “Yeah! Sounds like fun!”

The two of them went off after that to eat, and from what Riku could tell, Sora was back to his usually cheerful self. Seeing that in his closest, and best friend made him happy. Aside from those few times that Sora got down about that event, he always remained happy. There was hardly ever a time that could discourage Sora or cause him to be pessimistic. That single event though… that was the one and only thing that could show a different in him. But after nine years of seeing that more hidden side of Sora, Riku knew how to work with it. Riku would always do whatever he could to look out for his friend.

After they had eaten they left the house and swam out into the vast underwater land just outside of their village. They swam side by side at first, but soon Riku smirked at Sora and started to swim a bit faster.

“How about we race there?” Riku called out as he looked behind him, giving Sora a taunting grin.

“Aw no fair! You can’t do that Riku! That’s not fair,” Sora replied as he gave a childish pout. He started to move his tail faster though to try and catch up to Riku.

Riku laughed. “You can try to keep up at least, but I guess that means you know I’ll beat you there.”

“No! I’ll beat you there! You’ll see,” Sora replied as he tried to increase his speed to keep up with Riku.

“Like all the other times?” Riku asked as he turned on to his back, now swimming backwards.

“I’ve beaten you before, and I can do it again,” Sora said, his eyes filling with determination.

If it was one thing that the boys loved to do, ti was compete against each other. It was always something that had found fun to do. Whether it was racing or something else, it would usually end up as a competition of sorts. It was never truly anything serious, just playful moments of trying to have fun with one another.

They swam for a while, both of them swimming nearly side by side. There were moments where Sora pulled slightly ahead only to have Riku get ahead by several feet. Sora wasn’t ever ready to give up though. Just as they were approaching the edge of the northern coral reefs, Sora got a idea. He smirked as he pushed himself to speed up to Riku, who was now still ahead of him. Without slowing or trying to pass Riku, Sora instead coldied into Riku, wrapping his arms around his waist. The two of them toppled down to the sands before and finally came to a stop.

“Opps, sorry about that. Wasn’t looking where I was going,” Sora said overdramatically as he laughed. He leaned his face in closer to Riku and gave a smug smile. “Now we tied,”

Riku laughed as he reached up with his hand and began to ruffle Sora’s hair. “So you did that on purpose then?”

“What? Me? On purpose? Nah, why would I ever do that?” Sora said, keeping his overdramatic tone as he brushed his face up against Riku’s.

“If you wanted another kiss, you just have to ask,” Riku replied with a smirk as he leaned in slightly.

Sora’s face redded as he let go of Riku and sat up straight. He turned his head to the side and pouted slightly. He crossed his arms and shook his head. “Not funny.”

“What? Not funny how flustered you get? Cause I think it’s pretty amusing,” Riku said as he swam up a little. He held out a hand to Sora and now gave him a nice and regular smile.

Sora sighed and reached for Riku’s hand he let him pull him up. “I’ll find a way to get back at you one day. I’ll be the one teasing you!”

“Heh, good luck with that. Now come on, let’s explore the reefs,” Riku said as he turned to enter the coral reefs area.

Sora followed behind him, but as he did he glanced up slightly. Though they were many, feet below the surface, dark blotchy blobs could be seen moving slowing above. Sora knew that they were humans ships, traveling about or doing whatever else humans liked to do out on the waters. Sora shuddered slightly as he caught up to Riku and stayed close to his side. Riku looked at Sora before looking up to see where Sora was looking.

Without a word he grabbed onto Sora’s hand and interwove his fingers with Sora’s. “Hey Sora, it’s okay. We stay clear of the surface now, remember? There’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“I know… I can’t help it though if I get a bit tense with seeing ships though,” Sora replied as he finally looked away from the waters above.

“I understand. But we’re safe all the way down here. As long as we don’t go to close, we will be fine.”

“Hmm yeah,” Sora replied as he started to focus more on the coral reef around them.

They swam through the reef that surrounded them and look in all the beautiful that it was. Several different species of small fish swam around the area, but paid no attention to the young mermen who were swimming by. Eventually after a few minutes Sora and Riku came to a stop, there was a slight slope leading down to the next level of reefs, but something was there. There was a item that sat in the sand, between the layers of coral and everything else.

“Hey, what’s that?” Sora asked as he squinted his eyes.

“I don’t know, maybe something that fell off a human’s ship,” Riku commented, knowing that there was many times when a human lost something to the oceans below.

“Ooh! We should go investigate it,” Sora said with a look of curiosity and wonder.

“If you want to, but I’m not sure, it’s just out here and-”

“It’ll be fine, it’s all the way down here. It’s the human’s fault for letting it fall into the water,” Sora said as he started to swim down to the object.

Riku was about to follow when he felt a slight uneasiness. He glanced up towards the surface again and saw that there seemed to be one large ship treading the waters above them. Something didn’t feel right about this, but Riku couldn’t quite figure out what it was. He followed Sora down the slope and towards the object, keeping his guard up just in case.

The object in question was a rather strange looking chest. It was large and rectangular, and made of a shiny, reflective material that the boys were not familiar with. It had a intricate design and had at least three different colors to it; silver, black, and red. The red was a odd slight circle directly on top and there was silver lining all over it. Sora swam up close and started to circle it.

“Wow, pretty weird chest, right?” he asked as he looked over to Riku.

Riku stayed a bit away from the chest, the uneasy feeling not leaving him. There was just something that didn’t feel right about all of this. He tried to look around them carefully, but it was only them in the area. They were the only ones there, aside from the fish that swam around, but no fish was swimming near the chest at all.

Sora got a bit closer to the chest and carefully ran his fingers along the top of it. “I wonder if there is anything inside. Think we should open it?”

“Sora, I’m not sure we should, it’s a weird looking chest in the middle of the coral reef. It’s feels too off to be here.”

“Really? I mean it is just a chest. Humans have lost chests, boxes, and other items like this all the time. Why should be any different?” Sora said as he started to look over the chest to see if he could find a way to open it.

Riku watched Sora carefully as he eased himself a little closer. He glanced around the area again, trying to find anything that looked off or suspicious. His eyes soon fell to the sands below the chest. Though though chest laid in the sand, it almost looked like there was something underneath it. As the thoughts started to turn faster in Riku’s head he looked up to the surface again. That same waters blob of a ship was still above. Finally Riku realized that this chest was most likely not an ordinary chest. But just as he was about to open his mouth to tell Sora, he saw that Sora started to open the chest. There was the fainting clicking sound coming from the chest, and Riku decided standing and saying words wouldn’t do it in time.

Sora had just opened the chest and was ready to peer inside when he heard Riku shout his name before shoving into him and pushing him away. Sora fell to the ground a couple feet away, blinking with confusing. Though a sound of clicks drew his attention back to everything behind him. Sora felt his entire body tense up severely again now for the second time in his life.

There was no longer a chest in the sand, but instead a thick rope net that Riku was now trapped in. Sora’s breathing started to increase as he swam back to Riku. Now that the net was wrapped around Riku, both of them could now see that there was ropes on the top of the net that lead up to the surface… right up to the ship that was above.

“It… it was a trap…” Sora muttered as he swam up close to Riku, who was struggling against the net. “I… I’m so-sorry…”

Riku stopped trying to fiddle with the net and turned to look at Sora. “Hey hey, don’t freak out Sora. I’m okay this time. Just a little trapped is all.”

“We gotta get you out of here,” Sora said as he started to pull on the net.

Only a moment passed before the ropes leading up tightened and the net started to be pulled upwards, still with Riku tangled inside. Sora let out a panicked yelp as he still pulled and tugged on the ropes. Riku though reached his hands through the small square holes in the net and placed his hands on Sora’s face.

“Sora look at me.”

Sora whimpered as he shook his head. “No Riku… I gotta… I need to get you out of here.”

“Sora, please look at me,” Riku persistated.

Slowly Sora raised his head and looked directly at Riku. With a smile Riku pulled Sora right up to the net and Riku came closer. “I still don’t hate you Sora. Please don’t forget that. But please… stay safe, okay?”

“B-But Riku…”

“I don’t want to see you getting hurt or also captured. So please, for me, stay down here where it is safe.”

“No Riku,” Sora whispered, his voice not strong enough anymore to speak normally. “I don’t wanna leave you.”

“I know, but be strong Sora. I know you can be.”

Before Sora could answer back Riku moved forward in the net as far as he could and brought Sora even closer. He gently pressed his lips against Sora’s and let the moment soak in. He then pulled back and saw that the net was nearly pulled to the surface now. Sora stared with wide eyes at Riku, his face flushing a deep red. Riku gave Sora another smile as he finally let go of him. At first Sora didn’t move from his spot, still too shocked from what had just happened. But as soon as he saw the net pulled out of the water he finally snapped out of it.

“Riku!” Sora screamed before trying to swim the rest of the way to the surface.

But just before he would break against the water, he stopped. “I know I shouldn’t… Riku wants me to be safe… but I can’t let those humans get him!”

Slowly Sora peaked his head out of the water and swam up close to the side of the ship, hoping he would be out of view of any of the humans. But that meant he couldn’t see what was happening, he could only hear.

“Can’t believe it worked,” he heard one human said.

“We actually caught one. I guess that scientist wasn’t so crazy after all,” another added.

“Won’t he be happy when we bring him this thing,” a third one chuckled.

“I’m not a thing!” Riku shouted angrily, giving Sora a little relief that Riku sounded fine at least.

“Well we don’t know too much about mermaids or whatever, so to us you just are a thing,” one replied with a gruff voice.

“Just what are you planning to do with me?” Riku quickly asked, before any of the men could insult him again.

“Don’t worry, we aren’t going to hurt you. Someone is paying us a lot of good money to find creatures like you. And now you have just made our day.”

“So for now you just get to wait as we head back to land. But that is all you are getting from us,” the gruff sounding one said again. “Get him down to the tank below deck, but don’t him out of the net. Can’t have him trying anything funny on us.”

Sora heard the men on the deck shuffle around and Sora dunked back underwater. He swam around under the ship, seeing if there was anything that he could take note of. Seeing nothing under the ship he peeked his head out again and looked at the back of the ship. He saw that at back of it had words painted on the back. In golden paint, the words Scala Ad Caelum were painted fancily on the ship. Sora took a moment to remember what the name looked like before headed back underwater. He waited carefully under the water until the ship started to move. Quietly he swam under it and kept track of where it was heading and where he had started.

He knew that he should just listen to Riku and stay away. If he also were to get captured, he figured it could only get worse. But he wasn’t going to let them take Riku away. He had to find where the ship was heading, if he could do that, maybe… maybe then he could figure out a more thought through plan. And as he expected the ship heading right towards the land that he knew was nearby. Once he saw the ship dock he paused and breathed in heavily.

_“Please… you stay safe yourself Riku… I’ll find a way though. I’ll find a way to save you.”_ Sora thought to himself before he turned around and swam back to the village as fast as he could. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started nice and fluffy, and then went angsty. Haha. Gotta build up the plot somehow.   
> But thank you all for reading this chapter and I can't wait to show you what is next!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so since I posted Ch9 on my FF version today, I thought might as well add another chapter right now to this one, gotta catch up somehow haha.  
> Anyways I don't have much else to say, but enjoy!

Sora only got half way back to the village before he crashed into the sands below. His emotions had swayed back and forth his entire swim and now they were overpowering him for the worse. He let out a sob as he buried his face into his hands. He crumpled up as he just wanted to lay there. He hated himself so much right now, and now Riku wasn’t here to calm him down.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry Riku,” Sora sobbed quietly to himself.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have not seen that chest was a trap? It should have been obvious from the start. If he had just taken another moment to think like Riku was… nothing bad would have happened. If he could have been smarter, Riku would be safe and they would still be having fun together. But now that was all gone. Everything was ruined.

“Why did I open that stupid chest! I should have listened to Riku. It was totally suspicious! Stupid! Stupid!” Sora shouted at himself. He gripped his hair in frustration as he contoing to vent about it. “I was so caught up in how strange it looked… I didn’t stop to think that maybe that was a big freaking key that something was off!”

Sora let out a yell of anger he started to smack the sand around him, not caring if it was going to get in his hair nor not. He still almost could not believe what had happened… yet it had, and he was dealing with the repercussions now. Riku was now captured by humans, unharmed thankfully, but not safe. From what Sora could gather the humans on the ship were looking for merfolk to bring to some scientist. But why they were doing that… that was still something Sora couldn’t figure out.

“Why would a human want to just capture us? What reason could there be…”

Sora tried to ponder the ideas, but nothing came to mind. He had never heard of anything like that before, so the situation was new and strange to conprehem for him. He sighed again though as he feared what would happen to Riku. As he continued to lay in the sand though, he finally concentrated enough to slow down his breathing.    

_“I still don’t hate you Sora. Please don’t forget that…”_

_“... be strong Sora. I know you can be…”_

Riku’s kind and heartfelt words echoed deeply in Sora’s mind. His heart twisted with pain though as he thought back to their finally moments together. Though the memory of the brief kiss came to mind next. And that brought on a surge of emotions. He wanted to feel flustered and happy, yet at the same time it was the last thing Riku did before being pulled onto the ship. If Sora never saw him again… that would be their last moment together like that.

Finally Sora sat up and shook his head. “Gotta stop thinking negatively! I have to find a way to save Riku. That is what is important, not crying about our last moment we had.”

Sora’s courage had finally arose in him and he felt a spur of energy. He got back up and started swimming towards the village, now with serious determination in his mind. He knew finding a way to save Riku was going to be tough. With Riku being captured by humans… it meant only one option. An option that would have to lead him up to the surface world. All the way onto the land. Sora wasn’t sure if he was ready for something like that, but he knew he had to give it a shot. It was to save Riku after all.

Sora swam quickly through the village until he arrived at one particular house. He didn’t even bother to knock as he just opened the door. “Namine? Are you home?”

“Yeah, just a minute!” a female voice answered.

A moment later a girl, about a year younger than Sora, came out toward the front of the house. She had blonde hair that flowed just slightly past her shoulders, her bangs flowed to the side of her face, as she looked at Sora with her blue eyes. Her tail was a near pure white, and to match she wore a white tank top over her chest.

“Hey Sora, what’s up?” Namine asked him as she smiled.

“I… I need you help,” Sora said as he tried to keep a calm composure.

“What’s wrong?”

Sora was about to tell her exactly what happened, but a quick surge of fear of the event ran over him. “It’s… Something happened… I mean… I gotta… I need…” Sora sighed internally. _“So much for a calm composure…”_

Namine swam over to him and looked directly into his eyes. She then slowly placed her hands on Sora’s arms. “It’s okay Sora. Take all the time you need.”

“I don’t have all the time though!” Sora suddenly snapped. “I need your help with your magic to get to the surface! You know… the human magic stuff you know.”

“Oh… why do you need that?” Namine asked, a little confused by Sora’s abruptly statement.

Sora sighed heavily. “Sorry… it’s just that….” Sora took a moment to take in a deep breath. “Something happened and… and Riku got caught by humans. They didn’t hurt him… but they took him. And now I need to get him back.”

Namine’s eyes widened. “He was c-captured? How did that happen?”

Sora bit his lip before he caved in and decided to tell Namine the entire story. They took a seat on a couch before Sora before to tell the events that had happened. Namine listened carefully and felt her heartache as she saw the pain on Sora’s face. The worry and guilt was easy to read on him at the moment. Once he finished his story Namine reached forward and hugged him tightly.

“Oh Sora! I’m sorry that happened! But… how are you going to find him? If they took him onto the land you would have no way of knowing where to look.”

“I know the name of the ship and the voices of the humans there. If I can find them, I can question them,” Sora reposned.

“You can’t just go alone though. You have no idea how the human world works.”

“I’ll be fine. I don’t want to endanger anyone else anyway,” Sora said as he shook his head.

“If you think it is a dangerous task that could endanger others, then it is far too dangerous to go alone,” Namine replied, giving Sora a serious look as she narrowed her eyes.

“But who would even go with me?”

“Ahem…” Namine replied as she crossed her arms. He tail swung back as she waited for Sora to answer her back.

“Oh, Demyx! But wait.. Seriously? You think he would be helpful…? No offense to your brother, but you know how lazy he is and that he is a bit of a coward,” Sora replied as he rubbed the back of his neck, hoping not to upset Namine too much.

“He’s only lazy and a coward when he wants to be… which granted is most of the time. But if he puts his mind to something he can really pull through. Besides he knows the most about the human world out of every single merfolk in this village.”

“I guess that is true… but would he even want to help?”

“Of course! Plus it gives him another excuse to go back to the human world, cause he loves to go up there. Always gets more fun stories to tell that way. I’ll go get him, you wait here,” Namine said before she swam out of the house.

Sora only had to wait a few minutes before Namine returned, this time with a older boy behind her. Demyx was only four years older than Sora, but he still had a rather childish face. His hair was blond like Namine’s, but his was more of a dirty blonde. His hair was short and flowed up in the water at the top, and in back he had the slight mullet the ended above his shoulders. His eyes though were a little more teal than Namine’s blue, and his tail also was a deep navy blue.

Demyx gave a friendly smile as he waved at Sora. “Yo Sora, Namine told me a brief rundown happened. So,” he swam over and sat down next to Sora. “You need a guide to venture through the human world with. And you know, I am your guy for that!”

“Are you sure you want to come though? Because this wouldn’t be a fun trip to show me around… I have to find and rescue Riku.”

“I understand that, but I still wanna help. You guys are my friends, and why would I turn away from helping out my friends?”

“So… you’ll really help me find Riku?” Sora asked as he held his breath, waiting for the answer.

“Yeah, for sure!” Demyx replied cheerfully.

Sora threw his arms around Demyx and held him in a tight embrace. “Thank you!

Demyx chuckled as he returned the hug. “No problem. So when do we leave?”

Sora let go of Demyx after a moment and placed a hand to his chin. “I would wanna leave as soon as I could… but I don’t know if…” he glanced over to Namine.

“It wouldn’t take me long to make the potions. I know it pretty well by now,” Namine smiled happily. “I’ll go get it started.” Namine turned and headed into another room of the house, leaving Demyx and Sora alone.

“Sooo…” Demyx started. “Namine only told be a small bit, that Riku was captured yadda yadda. But I don’t know the full details. If we are going to do this, you gotta let me know what we are going to do.”

Sora nodded. “First once we get to land, we are going to find a certain ship. It has a name painted on the back of it. It was called; Scala Ad Caelum.”

“Sounds fancy,” Demyx said jokingly. Sora narrowed his eyes at Demyx, who held up his hands right after. “Sorry sorry. Continue on.”

“That was the name of the ship… and the only other thing I know is that the humans aboard it were looking for merfolk… for some scientist guy or something. I don’t know what he wants merfolk for though… but it can’t be anything good,” Sora said as he let out a sigh once he finished explaining.

“This sounds like it is going to be one big mystery adventure. In my times on land I’ve never heard of any humans capturing and taking merfolk, so this is pretty intriguing,” Demyx said as gave a thoughtful look over it.

“I just hope Riku is okay…” Sora sighed as he lowered his head.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Demyx said as he placed a hand on Sora’s shoulder. “We’re going to find him. You guys are like, super close. So maybe you have that, ya know, special connection in your hearts that will lead your to each other.”

Sora smiled as he gave a slight chuckle. Though Demyx was a bit of a lazy goof, he did have the moments when he knew what to say. The more Sora thought about it, there were many moments were Demyx seemed to be smarter than he let on. _“Maybe Namine’s right, Demyx might actually be more helpful in this than I thought.”_

Sora looked up to meet Demyx in the eyes and smiled at him, thankful for their friendship. “Thanks Demyx.”

“Sure thing! But before we go, there are somethings you need to know,” Demyx said as he held up a hand.

“Like what?”

“Oooh like so much! You cannot just go blinding into the human world without knowing the basics. I studied them many times before I actually made my first trip up there. Human may have some similar features to us, but there are so many differences. Trust me, you are in for quite a story here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally brought in Demyx and Namine into this. And yes I decided to make them siblings cause has that ever been done before in AU? I don't think it has, but I think it can work. But also poor Sora, he missed Riku so much, but now he has a plan! How will it go? Only one way to find out, tune in next time! Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it is late, but I thought to give another chapter update cause why not. So here it is. Enjoy!

Ch.5

Riku laid quietly in the small, holding tank that was in the inside of the ship. The heavy rope net still wrapped around him made it hard for him to move much, but he did managed to shift so he could lay on his side. He had been in the tank now for maybe over an hour. He knew that the ship had stopped somewhere, and Riku could only figure they were near or even at the human town now. He wasn’t exactly sure since he was mostly spacing out and glancing out the small porthole that was in the ship. It was the only small bit of the outside world that he could see now.

After a bit of staring he turned and looked around the dull room that he was in. Currently there was two of the crewmen standing in the room, keeping guard on him. They stared back at him, their eyes cold and serious. It had been like that the entire time that he had been here now.

“What are you planning to do with me?” Riku asked, just mainly wanting to break the silence.

“We told you before, there is a scientist who paid us to attempt to capture your kind. And now we are just waiting for him to arrive,” one of the men answered.

“But what does he want with me?” Riku asked, hoping to at least get a little more information than he had before.

“Hell if I know. We are just doing what we were paid to do,” the other one said.

Riku narrowed his eyes at the humans. He could tell that they seemed to be telling the truth, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to ask more. “How many others have you captured?”

“My my, full of questions suddenly, aren’t we?” the first man chuckled. “Well you will be happy to know you are the lucky first one. This scientist guy… he claims that for years he has been trying to perfect the ways of capturing you mermaids. And only in the past few months did he actually want us to go out and test his devices.”

Riku grumbled upon hearing the second to last comment the guy had made. “First of all, I’m a guy.”

“And like that’s suppose to mean anything or matter to us?” the second guy sneered. “You should just be glad we are being paid to capture you unharmed. Otherwise you’d be in pretty rough shape right now.”

“Yeah, if we weren’t getting paid a good amount, I would’ve totally taken some of them scales of yours, heh heh. Bet those would go for some good money.”

“Looks like someone may have beaten you to that,” the second guy laughed as he nudged his command. He pointed out at Riku, directly at the scar that was easily seen on his tail.

Riku shifted slightly and placed a hand over his scar, trying to cover it up from the view of the men. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed or uncomfortable by their comments, he just wished they would shut up about it.

There was suddenly a knock on the door to the room, thankfully distracting the men from making anymore rude comments to Riku. The captain of the ship walked in and marched right up to the tank. He bent over to get closer to Riku’s eye level and smiled coldly.

“Looks like your time here with us is over. But I hope your stay was comfortable, ha ha,” the captain laughed as he tapped against the glass.

“So now what then? Where is this scientist guy?” Riku demanded as he glared at the captain.

“You’ll met him soon enough, but he wants to transverse you to your… new home. But that is the fun part.”

“Fun… part?” Riku asked slowly as he raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he wants it to be a surprise. So be a good boy and take a nap,” the captain said before opening the lid on the tank and dropping a larged sized sphere down.

As soon as the sphere entered the water it started to quickly dissolve. Dark blue liquid streamed out from it and started to spread down into the tank. It flowed through the water down around Riku’s face. He tried to hold in his breath, but he could smell the off and strange smell that the liquid was giving off. Before he could try to ask anything more, his eyes grew hazy and the world around him seemed to grow dark. Slowly he closed his eyes as the liquid spread over the entire tank.

  
When Riku started to regain consciousness, he realized the rope net was no longer on him. The first thing he noticed that he was in a completely different tank. While it was bigger than the one on the ship, it still was not huge. But he was able to move around a little more with the space that he did have. The second thing was he noticed the place the tank was in. It wasn’t a ship, but looked like some type of room with various items that were foreign to Riku’s eyes.

The third and finally thing that drew his attention was that there was three humans standing in front of the tank. One was clearly an older adult man, and the other two looked to be only a few years older than Riku. And of the younger two, one was a female and the other a male. The young male though looked older than the female.

Even though Riku didn’t know a whole lot about the human world, he did know a few basic things from the stories Demyx had told. The humans before him wore a lot of clothing covering up nearly everything but their hands and faces. Even though he had never seen this type of clothing before, he could only guess what they were based off things Demyx had said. All of them wore long white coats, and black shoes. Thought he saw that the males wore grey shirts underneath the coats, and the female wore black.

The adult man had long and straight blond hair and rather vibrant green eyes. His hair ran down a little past his shoulders in front, but Riku could see that it was clearly a bit longer in back. To his right stood the young man, his hair color was a mix of colors from what Riku could tell. It seemed to be a bit of steal bluish-grey. All of his hair was unevenly laid, with some sections being shorter in parts and others longer. The longest part of his hair was a section that fell over his right eye and went a little past his chin, leaving only his left light blue eye visible. And then there was the female, she had deeper blue eyes, and short black hair that also looked a bit unevenly cut. She had slight bangs as some parts of her hair fell across her forehead.

The blond man stepped forward and leaned over slightly, bringing his long and narrow face closer to Riku’s eye level. “Oh good, you’ve awoken.”

Riku narrowed his eyes as he sat himself up. “So you’ve the one that ordered those men to set up that trap.”

“Yes that is correct,” the man replied. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Even, and these are my children Ienzo and Xion. I am a scientist dedicated to things unknown to us humans, and my children follow graciously with me in my search. And your kind is one of those I wish to learn more about. It’s too bad though… it would have been nice if they could have captured a female. The reproduction of merfolk is something we here have yet to understand. Unless you’d be willing to tell us.”

Riku scrunched up his face and looked at Even with disgust. “Why would I ever tell you something like that?”

Even let out a sigh as he stood back up. “I figured as much, just the same as the other. Maybe one day we can get a female though, after all my trap worked.”

_“Other? Does he mean… he has captured another merman before?”_ Riku thought as he tried to think more about the situation he was in. Though before he could get too deep in thought, another thought crossed his mind and distracted him. He hadn’t noticed right away, but he could tell now that his head felt a bit light.

Quickly he reached back and ran his hand through his hand and then let out a gasp. “What the hell!? You cut my hair?!” Riku kept feeling where his hair ended now, no longer did it run to half way down his back, now it was just a little past his chin.

“Oh yes, sorry about that,” Even replied with the slightly chuckle. “You just had so much of it, I didn’t think you would miss some of it. We’re only using it for observation and a few other things. Nothing terrible I assure you.”

Riku gritted his teeth at Even. “And just what do you intend to do with me? From what it sounds, you aren’t going to kill me.”

“Oh no, we wouldn’t want to do that. We need you alive for observation. Though if you think to try anything funny, you will be punished for it. So do think carefully before you act or say anything. Now just you wait there, I must grab one thing before we can continue.” Even turned and headed out of the room, leaving only Riku with Ienzo and Xion.

Xion looked at him, frowning slightly. She hummed slightly before she opened her mouth to speak. “I’m sorry we had to cut your hair like that. Our father just really saw it as a good opportunity. You still look just as pretty with short hair though.”

Riku huffed as he turned around, facing away from the two. Xion let out a sigh before Ienzo placed a hand on her shoulder. “It seems he isn’t wanting to talk to us just yet. Besides we won’t get much of a chance once father comes back. But there is always later.”

“I know… I just wanted to try and start off friendly…”

Riku turned his head slightly so he could see the two of them again. “You know I can still hear both of you.”

“Yes I know,” Ienzo replied. “But you should know, both of us have no ill intentions.”

Now Riku turned fully to face through, annoyance building up in his face. He moved closer to the glass, his face almost close enough to press up against it. “You work with your father to capture merfolk! How can you say you have no ill intentions?! You’ve taken me from my home, from my family and friends… from Sora…” Riku muttered the last part quietly, and it went unheard to Ienzo and Xion.

Xion frowned even more as she looked at Riku’s heart filled face. She leaned towards her older brother and he wrapped a hand around her. Ienzo looked down at her as he patted her head in comfort. He then turned his attention back to Riku.

“I know you may feel negatively about us. It is completely understandable. And it is true we do follow in our father’s footsteps, but that is because of how we’ve been raised. He is rather ambitious and that is what inspired us to follow with him. But we still wish to make friends with one another, though if you are hostile still towards us right now, we can understand that as well.”

Riku rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms. He decided not to say anything back to these two. He didn’t even know one good reason why he should. They were the children of the man to set up traps to capture merfolk. And now Riku was apart of whatever this… Even guy had planned. Riku sighed slightly as he thought back to everything he was ripped from. The first thought that always came to his mind though was Sora. Riku shuddered slightly as he thought about the thought if he had not been quick enough. If Sora had been captured and not him.

_“Sora… he most likely would have been so terrified. Sora… I hope you are doing all right. I hope you’re safe.”_

The door opened back up and Even walked back inside, now with a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other. “Okay, now we can begin. All we are going to do today is start with some introductory questions. So we can get to know you a little better.”

“And if I don’t want to answer anything? I don’t see why I should,” Riku stay, keeping a still and steady gaze at Even.

“The only things I want to ask you today are simple easy questions. Though if you choose not to cooperate… this tank is lined with special electrical surges. If I choose too…” Even walked over to a table and held up a small box that had a button on it. “I just press this button and it will send a shocking charge throughout the water. And trust me… I know this does work, so I would really hate for it to happen.”

Riku lowered his arms as he balled his hands into fists. He couldn’t understand what this was was all about. He tried to seem nice but then would threaten in the next moment? Even’s motives seemed to be more than he was letting on, but Riku couldn’t figure it all out. And as much as he didn’t want to answer anything or have anything to do with the three before him he felt it was best not to take a chance with making Even mad.

“Fine.”

Even put the button back on the table and smiled. “Good. Now let’s begin. Can you tell me what your name is? And how is it spelled?”

Riku sighed before finally deciding to comply. “Riku. R-i-k-u.”

“No last name?” Even asked as he started to write something down on his clipboard.

“Last name?” Riku asked as he raised an eyebrow.

Even shook his head. “Hmm nevermind that then. Next question; how old are you.?”

“Nineteen.”

“Good good… now where are you from?”

Riku grumbled as he narrowed his eyes. He could see that Even clearly wanted more information on merfolk. That was the most obvious part of all of this. But there was no way he would ever give information like that to him. So Riku decided to give an answer, just not the answer Even was most likely hoping for.

“The ocean.”

“Hmph,” Even huffed. “Your answer is as I expected it to be. That will be all for now then.”

“Wait what? Just three questions and that’s it?” Riku asked, slightly baffled at Even's response.

“I said that will be all for now, we will have more sessions later. Hopefully you will be more willing to talk then. But we do hope you enjoy your new home now, We will be interested in seeing your interactions with the other one,” Even said as he walked closer to the tank.

“New home? The other? How the heck can this-”

Before Riku could finish Even pushed a button that was on the side of the tank and the bottom opened up beneath him. Riku let out a brief yell as he ended up falling out of the tank, but immediately fell down into water again. Once Riku recover from the shock of suddenly falling, he looked around to see where he was.

It almost looked like he was back in the ocean again. There was plantlife, rockstruches and everything else far below him. But as he began to swim around he saw that there was still glass around everything. He quickly swam around, following the glass and saw that this was just another tank, but one that was much larger. This one at least was huge and spacious, but it was still a tank.

He glanced up at saw that wherever he had fallen through from was closed off. It was just a darken ceiling now. Riku sighed as his chest started to feel heavy. He knew that he had ended up here cause of his choice. He had chosen to get captured over Sora. But even though he was glad it was him here and not Sora… he still hated that it had even lead to this. He still couldn’t blame it on Sora though. He never wanted to do that. Sora’s curiosity was not something he wanted to blame. But even with all of that he knew one thing for sure that came from all of this.

He was trapped here.

He had no way of escaping.

He was still a prisoner. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes I went with Riku's side of things. Wanted to introduce more characters and such (and now I can add them to the tag list right? Still new to Ao3 here haha). Even with his children Iezno and Xion, ain't that a interesting concept? I am thinking of the randomnest families for this story. But thank you for reading so far. Thank you for the kudos and everything!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So chapter 10 went up today on my FF version, which means gotta update one here as well. But thank you so much so far for the kudos. I am glad people are interested in this story!

Riku sighed as he swam closer to the bottom of the tank. Even though he knew it was all something fake that Even must had created, he thought to explore a bit. He had nothing better to do anyways. As he came closer to the bottom he saw that there seemed to be a house-like structure.

 _“How can he know what my village’s house look like?...”_ Riku thought as he got closer. Just before he got too close though he came to a halt. _“Wait… he mentioned there was another here… another merman. Or was that something in the past… Could they… still be here?”_

Many more thoughts tried to cross Riku’s mind, and it started to feel overwhelming. With knowing there was… or had been another merman here… Riku started to wonder how long he would be here. He knew especae was not an option… but what ever Even had planned was a different story.

But before his thoughts could carry too far, a voice distracted him. “I would like to say that it’s nice that I finally have a roommate after all these years, but that also means you were dumb enough to get caught in the first place.”

Riku tensed up at the sound of the voice. His heart started to pound against his chest just from hearing the voice. It sounded… almost familiar… but not in a way he ever wanted to think about it. Slowly Riku turned around to face the source of the voice. When he did he nearly did a double take. His heart rate increased more.

For the briefest moment he swore that he was looking at Sora sitting on a rocky area. But he knew that made no sense at all. And the more he stared, he saw there was some differences. This merman looked to be in his early 20’s for one. But there was still some very eerie striking similarities to Sora.

Though the merman had black hair, it looked just like Sora’s did. The same style of spikes going out in all directions, albeit this guys maybe was a little more messy and longer than Sora’s. Then there was his eyes. Sora’s were a deep blue and this guy’s were a golden color. Though ihs tail was the same shade of blue that Sora had. The other only thing was that this merman had a very small scars on his arms, and at least one or two on his tail.

None of this was making any sense. _“How could there be someone that looked just like Sora in here?”_ Riku thought to himself as he tried to think of any logical explanation. Though after thinking, he started to come to one realization. _“He does… kind of look like a younger version of Sora’s father… But how can that…”_

“Hey!” the semi-Sora look-alike shouted. “Can you hear me? I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Ah… sorry… It’s just that you… You look like Sora,” Riku respond as he swam a bit closer to the merman.

“Who?”

“Ah… hmm…” Riku started to say something but then stopped. It was clear that this guy did not know who Sor was. But if Riku’s inner thoughts were right, he had to find a way to test it and figure it out. “I know this may sound random, but do you remember the names of your parents?”

The merman raised an eyebrow. “What? Why are you asking something like that?”

“Just please, answer the question. It will help me figure out something.”

With a shrug the merman responded, “Nope sorry I don’t. If it means anything, I was only five when I was taken, so a lot of my memories of my parents are hazy. I remember vaguely though that I do look like my father… and my mother I think had brown hair and blue eyes.”

Riku’s eyes widened. He let out a gasp as he started to add together all the points the merman had just said to him. When he really thought about it, it started to make sense. Though there was now one last question he had to ask. “How long ago were you five? I mean how many years has it been since you were captured?”

“Hmmm I think eighteen years now? I don’t really pay too much attention to that stuff though. But…” the merman got up and swam closer to Riku. “You going to tell me what all your questions are about now?”

“Well… what I think is that you are from the same village as me. And that you’re the older brother of my friend, Sora.”

“Older brother? Wait…” the merman turned around and started swimming around. “Something about that… sounds familiar. I… I think you may be right. I think I remember my mother saying something to me, something about me being a older brother one day.”

“You also look just like Sora’s father… and you’re description of your mother is the same as his. So it’s the only reason that makes sense,” Riku added.

The merman smiled slightly as he stopped swimming in circles. “Hmm so I actually have a younger brother. But… seems neither of you even know who I am. Guess mom and dad were pretty upset when I disappeared. Didn’t wanna cause anymore heartbreak by explaining it to… Sora. Or something like that. But hey, I got a younger brother, how about that.”

“Yeah, but uh… who are you though? I mean you name,” Riku said, realizing that he should have at least started with that question.

“Vanitas. And you?”

“Riku.”

“So Riku,” Vanitas said as he swam up close to his face. His eyes serious as he stared down at Riku. “Just who are you to Sora then?”

Riku blinked with surprise, not expecting such a question. It was completely out of nowhere. “Wh-What?”

“Ah, so the boyfriend,” Vanitas stated directly, the smallest smirk stretching across his face.

Riku’s cheeks turned red slightly as he backed up slightly from Vanitas. “Why would you s-say that?”

Vanitas’s smirk grew bigger as he leaned in closer. He crossed his arms slightly before chuckling. “It’s kind of obvious. I can see it written all over your face.”

“S-So?” Riku asked, actually feeling a bit flustered much to his surprise.

It was so strange as he couldn’t remember ever being flustered before. Why only now did he feel like this? Was it because someone was directly calling him out for it? He didn’t get much chance to think on it as Vanitas leaned in a bit closer, his smirk growing even larger.

“Well I gotta know now… are you a suitable boyfriend for my little brother.”

_“What the heck?! A minute ago he didn’t even know he had a brother, now he suddenly is all ‘big brother’ now that he knows?”_

Riku slowly backed away as he tried to think of what he could say to divert the conversation. “Uh wait. You said you’ve been here eighteen years now?”

“Avoiding the question I see, fine. We’ll leave that subject to another time,” Vanitas said as he back up a little. “But yes I believe it’s been around eighteen years.”

“How have you been trapped here for that long?”

“I… I don’t really know. The years went by slowly at first, but then started to move by more quickly. It’s kind of crazy now that I think about it… just how much I must have missed back there,” Vanitas said as he slowly sat back down on the rock he had been sitting on.

Riku swam over to him and sat close by. He could see that Vanitas had a little bit of loneliness creeping into his face. He did feel bad for the guy of course, but Riku wanted to find out more about the situation to understand what he could be in for. It was still such a surprise to see another merfolk here, and even more so that it was apparently the older brother of Sora.

“What have the humans done though? Surely they couldn’t have just kept you locked up here all these years.”

“They’ve examined me and observed me, not too much else besides that. Asked me questions and I gave answers. Without revealing too much I have given them information about our culture and other things,” Vanitas explained as he stared upwards. “This aquarium use to be pretty barren you know, only a few plants and rocks. Once I told them more things though they added more to make it more pleasing for me.”

Riku listened carefully to what Vanitas was saying, though there was one word amoung him that he did not understand. He knew some human words from hearing things from Demyx, but he hadn’t heard every single word of course. “Wait… what is an aquarium?”

“Just a really big tank basically. To hold aquatic life and stuff for humans to see,” Vanitas replied promptly.

“So it is just a prison that is on display for humans?” Riku asked.

“Yeah sort of, but I’m… or I guess now we’ve ‘on display’ for only three humans.”

“Have you ever tried to escape?” Riku asked, hoping maybe there was some secret passageway that could be accessed.

“Tried to before, but they caught me… and then Even gave me these…” Vanitas pointed to the scars on his arms. “He said it was ‘just a warning’ and that he didn’t want to have to get too aggressive with it. So I backed away from trying to escape again.”

“So you just let them keep you here? You know they are just trying to find out where all the merfolk are so they can capture them,” Riku said quickly.

“I know that… but it isn’t all like that. It isn’t all that bad at least. I haven’t given away anything critical to Even yet. For the most part he is has only been learning about my way of life,” Vanitas replied with a shrug.

Riku sighed slightly as he took in more information. He saw that Vanitas was telling the truth at least, even though it was hard to believe. Vanitas had been somehow taken away when he was only five-years-old. Riku thought for a moment that he could ask about htat, but felt it was too insensitive to ask how Vanitas had gotten captured at such a young age. But there was also another part of it that felt odd to him.

“How can you be so calm about this though? You’ve been here nearly all your life, hasn’t it gotten to you ever that you are just trapped here?”

Vanitas sighed and closed his eyes. “Yeah sometimes it has… but…” he opened his eyes back up and looked at Riku. “There are two things here that keep me going.”

“Two things?”

Vanitas chuckled. “You’ll see later.”

After a pause Vanitas got up and started to swim around. “There is a extra bedroom in house so you can sleep there. There is food of course around in the house of course. That was one of the first things Even did was find out what kinds of foods we eat.”

Riku eyed Vanitas as he swam around. Seemed that he just watched to get in some exercise is or just was bored of sitting around. “Do you know why he is so curious about our kind?”

“Not in full detail. I know though he is just very curious and wants to know as much as he can.”

Vanitas continued to swim around, doing a few twils and flips as he went around the tank. Riku remained where he sat though. He was still trying to analyze his situation. Apparently there could have bene ways to escape in the past, but he started to think that by now Even would have blocked out any way that could lead them to escape. Though it seemed Vanitas was adjusted to life in the tank, Riku was not and he didn’t want it to get like that.

He could understand that Vanitas may have ended up feeling like he was use to it, since he had been there since he was five. He had grown up within confined glass walls and became use to it. Riku was nineteen though. He had grown up like any other merfolk… out in the ocean, free to roam the vast ocean floor.

It was still hard to accept the fact though that it was all gone for him. He was now gone from his home… never to see it again. His heart ached as he lowered his head. He sighed heavily as he rested his face into his hands. Once again the weight of the situation was filling up inside of him, and he wished he could push it all away. But it stayed and it lingered heavily within him.

Suddenly Vanitas’s face appeared right in front of him again, this time though upside down. “So you asked me all of your questions. Now I get to ask you some. How clueless are you that you ended up getting caught by Even’s trap?”

Riku looked up and screwed at Vanitas. “I wasn’t being clueless…”

“So dumb them,” Vanitas chuckled.

Riku grumbled as he crossed his arms, not to happy with Vanitas’s bluntness. “Not that either.”

“Then what was it?”

Riku’s tension loosened slightly as he thought back to the even. It was still vividly fresh in his mind. Sora looking at the chest, pushing him out of the way, and the trap wrapping around him. The fear in Sora’s eyes were what stayed most prominently in Riku’s mind. How afraid and hurt Sora was to see Riku caught like that.

Sighing Riku finally answered Vanitas. “I only got caught… cause I was doing it to save Sora…”

“Ooh, so he is the clueless one.”

“Well…” Riku started to say as he tried to think of a way to defend Sora, but he ended up chuckling slightly. “He can be a little bit. He gets excited about so many things that he forgets to think a little some of the time.”

“But that means you are the brave type. Wanting to protect those who matter to you and all right?”

Riku nodded. “Yeah. I care about Sora dearly… I always told myself I would do whatever I could to keep him safe.”

“Hmm,” Vanitas hummed as he finally turned right side up again. He started to slowly swim on his back around Riku. “Those are some good qualities for a boyfriend at least. Strong, protective, and caring. I can see why Sora must like you”

Riku felt the heat in his cheeks rise again. Though he snapped out of it as he let some anger seep into him instead. He glared at Vanitas before swimming right up to him. “Would you quit with that?”

Vanitas turned over to properly face Riku, giving a seemingly innocent look. “Quit what?”

“Quit saying things like that! You didn’t even know Sora existed until now! So how can you pretend that you are being a big brother to him when you don’t even know him!”

“Hey hey, relax,” Vanitas said as he held up his hands in defence. “I was only messing around. Little teasing or whatever.”

“But what is even the point!” Riku shouted. “Saying those things means nothing now! I… I won’t ever get to see Sora again. Thinking about him and how I left him behind… i-it only makes it worse.”

Vanitas lowered his arms as he looked carefully at Riku. He studied the expression that Riku wore and saw how torn up that he apparently was. Even without truly knowing Sora or even Riku, he could see how close they must have been. Carefully Vanitas reached out a placed a hand on Riku’s shoulder.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to upset you. But you said you saved Sora, that’s the good part though. He’s safe now.”

“Y-Yeah… but probably heartbroken and guilt tripping himself….” Riku replied as he tilted his head down and sighed sighed. “It’s not the first time… that I’ve saved him. There was one other time, when we were kids. Left me with this.” Riku gestured to his large scar on his tail. “Sora is usually always happy and smiling, but there was one side of him that only I knew. The half of him that was afraid. He had become scared after that event. Scared to lose me. Now we’re apart… he’s probably devastated.”

Riku could feel the suppressed emotions rising even more. He never wanted to make a scene about it, but it was getting harder to contain it. All of his own fears and negative emotions were starting to show. He knew that it was probably clear as day for Vanitas to see. He swam away slightly from Vanitas and started to slowly let himself sink back to the floor. He pressed a hand against his face as he kept wanting to hold back his sobs.

“Ah… I see. I’m sorry again though if I made you feel worse than you already were. I didn’t know…”

Riku didn’t make any attempt to look back up at Vanitas or even say anything back to him. He didn't feel like it anyways. He finally reached the bottom and sat down on the sand there. That was when it finally hit him in full. He couldn’t hold it back any longer as he let out though formerly restrained sobs.

Every time Riku closed his eyes he kept either seeing a happily cheerful image or Sora, or a completely heartbroken Sora. Both of them in his head twisted and hurt his heart. Never again would he hear Sora’s childish, but adorable voice… or even his laugh. Though Vanitas’s voice had a similar sound to Sora’s, albeit a bit rougher and deeper, it of course was not the same thing. But it did make him think more about Sora, and the more he did, the more his heart hung with sadness.

Vanitas started to swim a bit closer, but half way there he stopped. He watched Riku carefully, but couldn’t find the right words to say to him. What even could he say? He had no idea how to really comfort the merman he just had met, And it seemed that Riku would be best if he just had some alone time. So with a sigh Vanitas turned and headed into the house for the time being. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many thing I love. One is Vanitas being Sora's brother, and another Vanitas being the best at teasing people. I just find it a lot of fun to do that. But thank you all so far for reading. If you have any thoughts so far, let me know as I am curious what you guys are thinking.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for another chapter of the Mermary KH story that I created on whim but just kept rolling with it! But Ch11 went up on the FF version... I still gotta catch up over here, I just don't wanna post it all to crazily.   
> I never can think of anything else fun or random to say most the time, so let's just get to it!

Sora sat on Namine’s couch, now waiting for her to return with the potions. He was still trying to listen to Demyx rambling on and on about the human world, but there was far more than he thought there would be.

“So humans actually eat sea creatures but also keep some as pets?”

Demyx nodded. “It’s a bit strange to see sometimes.”

“That is interesting to know… but how is that out of everything going to help me get through the human world?”

“Just don’t want you freaking out all over the place if you see a yellow tang in a glass tank. Or anything else like that.”

“I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Sora said defensively as he crossed his arms.

“You never know,” Demyx said as he shrugged his shoulders. “I nearly did some of my first trips to the human world.

“Yeah yeah,” Sora sighed as he leaned back.

He was starting to get a bit impatient as he waited for Namine to return. It had not been too terrible long, but to Sora it felt like forever. He wanted to just get going. He wanted to get to the human world, find Riku, and return home safely. That was all he wanted to do. But the longer he waited, the more he started to worry about Riku.

 _“Please, please be okay Riku…”_ Sora thought to himself.

Demyx started to notice that Sora was fidgeting more and more. His hands kept going from twiddling his thumbs to just clenching and unclenching. Demyx frowned as he felt bad for Sora. Never before had he ever seen his friend so distressed. He had always known Sora for being happy-go-lucky and always wanting to help out anyone in the village. He never knew that Sora had such fear and anxiety within him. But the more he thought about it, he understood why that was.

Riku and Sora had always been the best of friends ever since they were kids. They always had seemed like a perfect pair. Sora being the happy energetic one, and Riku the calm and collected one. They were always very close as they did nearly everything together. Then came that day where Riku was injured from human hunters. After that Riku and Sora seemed closer than ever before.

So now with Riku actually captured by humans this time, and hauled off to who knows where, Sora was left in a state of disarray. Demyx reached out to place a hand on Sora’s shoulder. “Hey, we are going to get him back. Don’t worry so much.”

“I know… I just keep wondering… what if something happens? What if he is… I mean… if…”

“We won’t let that get to that then. We will get out there and find Riku before you know it,” Demyx said reassuringly.

Sora breathed in slowly before he ended up nodding. He was glad to have Demyx there to support him. “Yeah. Thanks again Demyx.”

“Sure thing Sora.”

Namine swam back into the room after the next moment. A small case was in her hands. It was a basic case that was simple but had a strap on it to wear over the shoulder. “Here they are. Potions are all ready and set.” She swam right up to the boys and opened the case, revealing six small bottles with orangish-red liquid inside.

“Why six of them?” Sora asked.

“Because, you will need to give one to Riku of course so it is easy to make it back to the water. And then extras in case if one gets dropped or anything else,” Namine explained.

“Ooh, that makes sense. Thank you so much for this Namine!” Sora exclaimed as he carefully took the case and held it in his hands. “Now what do we do?”

“Now,” Demyx said as he got up from the couch. “We head to the surface.”

Namine swam forward and smiled at Sora. “Good luck and be safe. Find Riku and bring him back, okay?”

“Yeah. Thank you again,” Sora said as he smiled back to her.

Namine then swam over and wrapped her arms around her brother. “You take care as well. Don’t do anything stupid this time.”

“This time? Aw come on Nami, you gotta have more confidence in me,” Demyx replied with a pout before hugging Namine.

“Just watch out for each other. I’ll wait for all of you to return safely.”

After that Demyx and Sora swam out of the house and Demyx led the way towards the human town. They stayed underwater for their journey as they didn’t want to be seen. Soon enough Sora could see the rocky structure underwater that was apart of the land above.

Sora then swam up a bit closer to Demyx. “So how are we going to do this? You know, without being see?”

“Don’t you worry Sora, after all these years, I got a special way of doing things. Just follow me,” Demyx responded as he dived down slightly and approached the rocks.

Sora thought of asking Demyx what he was doing, but has he kept pace he started to notice something. THere was a darker area of the rock that he had not seen from a distance. When he got close enough he saw that it was actually a hole within the rocks and it seemed to lead somewhere within.

“Whoa! A secret passageway?”

“Yeah! Isn’t it neat? It leads into a small cave area and that is where we will get out and drink the potions,” Demyx explained before swimming into the entrance of the cave. “It gets a bit dark so just feel along the walls to know where to go.”

The two of them entered deeper into the passageway and Sora did as he was told. He ran his hand carefully across the rocky siding and felt when to turn and went to swim up. Only once did he go a bit to fast and bumped into the back of Demyx, but aside from that he had managed to get through it.

When he popped his head out of the water, he saw that they were now in the small cave area. There was a few small coral lights strewn about the area, giving at least some light to make things easier to see. Demyx then swam to the edge of the water and pushed himself up onto the rocky floor. Before he said anything he leaned over to a small crate that was near the water's edge and opened it up. He pulled out a large piece of fabric and draped it over his dripping wet tail.

“Why are you doing that?” Sora asked, tilting his head slightly.

“I told you before, humans don’t just go around completely naked. They don’t always where a top half, mainly men, but everyone always covers up the bottom half. Cause they are rather private about those things.”

“Humans are just really weird,” Sora commented as he swam over to Demyx and placed the case with the potions next to him.

“Yeah, but it’s just one of the elements that make then so fascinating to learn about,” Demyx said as he opened up the case and picked up a potion.

He then opened the top of it and drank down all of the liquid. He placed it back in the case before wincing slightly. He breathed heavily for a moment until he finally closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. Sora glanced at the fabric that still covered Demyx, now noticing that it was a slightly different shape than before. Without a word though Demyx shift and now stood up as he wrapped the fabric around his waist. But Sora could see now at the bottom of the fabric that there was two human feet.

Sora’s eyes widened as his mouth dropped to the mouth. “Wow! Like it actually… you really have.. Human legs.”

“Heck yeah I do! Feels good to have legs again to walk around. But now for some clothes,” Demyx said as he walked over to a different crate that was closer to the cave wall.

“But…” Sora started as he thought about what he just saw. “It actually hurts?”

“Well… not really. I mean it feels a bit weird. Ah… it’s hard to explain. But I mean like you are literally having your tail change into the bottom half of a human. Shifting your tail into two legs. It’s not as bad as you think it may be,” Demyx said as he begun to rummage through the crate. “Now I know I am a bit taller than you, so my clothes may be a slight big on you. If that bothers you too much we can always go out and buy you more fitting clothes.”

“So I really gotta wear human clothes?”

“Yes! Didn’t I just explain that humans have a thing about covering up? If you go out there naked you are seriously going to get some looks and problems. Trust me, I made that mistake my first time up here.”

As much as Sora wanted to hear a story about that event, he knew it was far from the time to do so. “All right. So should I drink the potion now?” Sora asked, eyeing the five remaining full potions.

“Not yet. Let me finished getting dressed first, then we will deal with that,” Demyx replied.

Only a couple minutes went by before Sora looked over to Demyx again. And when he saw him, he was now wearing human clothing. He wore a light blue tank-top with shorts that went from orange to a dark blue. And then on his feet were basic black sandals.

“All right, let’s get to it. Hop up on rock floor here and grab a potion,” Demyx said before going back to the first crate and picked out a nice dry fabric. He then threw it over Sora’s tail before sitting down besides him. “Whenever you are ready.”

Sora stared down the bottle in from of him. Tilting it slightly back and forth so he saw the red liquid move. He let out a long, slow breath as he opened the top. “I gotta do this. For Riku.”

After another series of deep breaths he placed the bottle to his lips and downed the liquid. Thankfully it did not have a fowl taste, rather a more undefined taste that was neither bad or good. As soon as the last drop went down his throat, he felt the slightly burning sensation in his tail. He grimaces for as he could actually feel his tail changing on him. It only lasted a few second though and then it was all over. Sora could easily feel now that he no longer had a tail, but instead had legs.

He pulled on the fabric slightly and revealed the human feet that he now had. With a little bit of concentration he started to move the feet and wiggle the toes. Sora stared as he became so amazed by what he was seeing. “This is so weird…”

“Standing gets a lot weird, so we better get to that sooner or later,” Demyx said before standing up. He then extended a hand out to Sora in which Sora quickly grabbed.

Placing both feel on the rocking floor, Sora took in another deep breath before he let Demyx pull him up. Immediately he felt his new legs wobble and he wanted to collapse back down the toe ground, but Demyx held him up.

“It’s going to feel a bit shaky at first walking around. It’s much different operating two different legs rather than one single tail.”

Sora scoffed. “I figured as much.”

Demyx held Sora there until he felt like Sora could try to manage on his own. Slowly stepping away he let go and Sora continued to stand up straight. Demyx gave a smile before turning back to the secondary crate to pick out some clothes for Sora. While he did that Sora was slowly trying to take a few steps. His legs still felt weak and uncertain, but Sora was not about to let that stop him. He made it this far, he had legs now, so he couldn’t just give up after that.

Demyx then tossed him a bunch of clothes. Sora caught them quickly, nearly stumbling back to the ground, but he managed to keep himself up. He looked down at each piece of fabric before trying to put it on. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to have Demyx help him put on some of the clothes, as human clothes were still strange to him. Once everything was on he looked over himself in the reflection of the water.

He wore a dark blue tank top with collar that was white. Then he had on plain, red shorts that ended above his knees. While the clothes were not a perfect fit, the tanktop was a bit larger, and the shorts a slight bit baggy, he felt that they were fine. He stared at himself for what felt like the longer time. That is… until Demyx cleared his throat and drew his attention over there. He held up a pair of brown sandals.

“Shoes, sandals or whatever kind of footwear… it may feel weird. As like a lot of things do, but it’s just more helpful to wear some time of stuff for your feet,” Demyx said before handing over the sandals to Sora.

Sora nodded and placed them carefully on his feet. It was another strange feeling that he was not yet use to, but he was still ready to brave it. “Okay. Are we ready to go then?”

“Ready if you are,” Demyx said.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Lead the way out of here… and into the human town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tired to describe that change as best I could without being too weird with it haha. Hope it was good enough.  
> Thank you all for reading it though, stay tuned for more!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos guys! As of posting this chapter the newest one on FF has not gone up yet, mainly because i was busy yesterday and didn't get to writing it. Hopefully later today that can happen and then I may post the next chapter to upload here.

Sora and Demyx walked forward, towards where Demyx had said the exit to the cave way. They walked slowly though as Sora was still not accustomed to having legs to walk on. Nearly every few steps he stopped and held himself against the wall. Trying to regain his balance and hoping he didn’t trip or topple over.

“Hey Sora, we don’t gotta rush out of here, if you aren’t ready yet. We could practice walking around the cave first for a while if you wanna get use to it,” Demyx suggested as he turned around to see Sora, once again, leaning against the cave wall.

Sora shook his head as he pushed himself away from the wall and held his hands out. He waited a moment before he felt like he had his balance against and walked to catch up with Demyx. “No, I’m fine. I can do this.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

Sora shook his head again. “I said I’ll be fine. Now come on, where to now?”

Demyx pursed his lips slightly, trying to figure out what to say. But he found himself at a lost. He already knew that Sora had a strong determination to keep going, but he only wished to make sure his friend did not overwork himself. So after a moment he needed and walked a little bit slower, so he could be side by side with Sora.

“Just a little bit more to go,” Demyx said as they started heading down a narrow tunnel area of the cave. “It may look like there is not an exit, but it’s just covered up so no humans can wander in here.”

They walked a little while longer until they reached what Sora would have assumed was a dead end if Demyx had not told him it was a fake end. Demyx reached towards the rock and pushed on it, moving it slightly forward.

Light started to peeked through the cracked now showed around the edge of the cave and streamed into the tunnel. Sora stepped forward after Demyx and looked around the area they were in. Aside from the small cliff that was behind them, they were now in a forest area. Sora breathed in deeply as he took in the pleasant smell of the pine trees and flowers around the area.

Sora stepped out a bit further so Demyx could seal up the hole in the cave and he continued to walk around. His eyes wide with amazement at everything he saw. He stepped a few feet further before he stopped to look down at the small little flowers next to his feet. He bent down and looked at them closely. They had smooth light green stems and small yellow petals all around it, giving it a rounded look.

“What kind of flowers are these?” Sora asked as he saw Demyx walking over to him.

“Those would be dandelions. They are really fun. They start yellow then several days later they are all white and fluffy. I think I read the white is the seeds or something? Anyways humans have this thing, if you find one like that you pick it up and make a silence wish before blowing all the little white seeds away and it’s suppose to come true.”

“Whoa! Have you wished on one before?” Sora said as he poked the little yellow flower.

“Nope not yet. I’ve blown the seeds away on dandelions, but never remember to make a wish on them.”

“Sounds cool though. I’d wanna see one,” Sora said as he stood back up.

“Maybe you will. But now come on, we gotta get moving,” Demyx said as he waved for Sora to follow him.

The forest was far deeper than Sora originally thought. They strolled through it for a bit until they reached a pathway. As they walked Sora let his mind wander again. While he was still thinking about Riku and finding him, he started to find himself more and more curious about the human world that he was now getting to explore.

The little bit of curiosity that he had when he was a child was resurfacing within him and he carefully started to look around each and everywhere at everything he saw. Everything that they passed by he had heard of or saw from a distance. But now that he was walking up close to it, it was a totally different experience.

“So you said we were going to find a ship first right? That means we gotta head to the docks. And then hope that the ship you saw is still there.”

Sora snapped back into focus as he nodded. “Yeah that’s right. We’ll find them and hopefully Riku is still there If not those humans are going to have to give some answers.”

“Whoa whoa, let’s not cause any trouble okay? You don’t wanna get into fights, especially with sailors. They are really brutal,” Demyx said in a warning tone.

“I’ll try… but I just really need those answers.”

“Well… we shall see how it goes then. The edge of the town is just ahead. We’ll then head west a bit to go down to the docks,” Demyx explained as they started to see the edge of the forest.

Sora looked as he saw the town come up into better view. There was humans walking around all over the place. There was strange square or rectangular shaped building all around for houses and shops of all different kinds. Not only was he seeing so many new things for the first time, but he was also smelling a lot of new scents. Flowers were one smell, but now here could tell there was so many different ones. He had no idea what any of them were, and he was very tempted to find out. But once again he was snapped out of those thoughts as Demyx shook his shoulder.

“Hey we can go sightseeing later. You said Riku was your top priority right?”

With a heavy breath Sora looked away from the town. “Yeah… Sorry it’s just so distracting.”

“I know it can be. The human town is a lot of fun to see, but it has to be for another time.”

“Hmm… Let’s just get to the docks already,” Sora said as he finally stopped looked at the town and in the direction they were going to head.

Quietly they walked down the path leading to the docks. When they got there Sora started to look over the many boats that were there, trying to identify the one he had saw before. Eventually his eyes laid upon it and thankfully the same words ‘Scala Ad Caelum’ were painted on the side of the boat as well. He nudged Demyx a little as he started to walk closer to the docks and right towards the boat.

“Wait Sora, you’re just waking up there? What are you even going to say?”

Sora stopped and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Wait what?! You mean you came all this way, but didn’t think of a plan?”

“I did plan a little though. I was going to find them and find where Riku is,” Sora said before he kept walking.

“But that isn’t a plan. That is just an idea. Seriously you can't just walk up to them and ask ‘hey where did you take my merman friend’. They will totally not like you asking that.”

“I gotta try though… It’s all I got to go on right now,” Sora replied, heavy seriousness within his voice.

Demyx had never heard such a tone from Sora before. Upon looking at his face, he could see that Sora also wore a serious expression. Sora was more determined than ever before. Demyx figured it had to be Sora’s strong will to want to save Riku and be with him again. Afterall he knew how close the two where. All of Sora’s fears and doubts seemed to be cast aside as he had his eyes locked onto the target.

Sora stepped down onto the docks and apoorcked the isle that had the boat tied up to it. Clenching his fists he took in a deep breath as he saw several men walking about the deck of the ship, checking various items and cleaning up. Sora took in one last breath before finally marching up to the side of the ship.

“Hey! You guys there!” he shouted at them, trying his best to keep his cool.

One of the men look up and over at Sora. He scowled with annoyment. “Eh what do you want kid?”

“I-I… I have a few questions I want to ask you. And you better answer them!” Sora took a few steps close as he spoke, not even caring what he was saying. He knew it would be tricky to talk to these guys, but he had not thought of what to say to them. So all the first thoughts in his head where the things being said.

“The heck? Why you bothering us kid?” another one of the men asked as he too started looking at Sora. “Just get lost.”

“No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where my friend is,” Sora said as he stood still, keeping his fists tightened.

“Friend? What are you even talking about?” the first man said as he dropped what he was holding and matched over to the edge of the boat to get closer to Sora.

“You know very well what I mean! You took my friend earlier today, and now I wanna know where he is,” Sora grumbled at the men. He narrowed his eyes at them, trying to keep his serious expression.

“You’re friend? What do you… wait… do you mean that merman that we captured this morning? Why the hell would you know something like that?”

“Cause I know you took my friend. And now I want to know where you have him.”

“It’s none of ya business kid. So buzz off,” the first man said as he turned to go back to his work.

“I’m not leaving until I have some answers,” Sora said as he stepped forward, towards the ramp that led onto the ship.

“Sora…what are you doing?” Demyx whispered as he walked over to him. “You really shouldn’t do that.”

Sora didn’t listen though as he walked up onto the main deck of the boat. Now all of the men that were currently on there, which was three, stopped what they were doing and walked over to Sora. They towered over him as they all gave him angry and annoyed looks.

“You trying to piss us off kid? We said for you to get lost.”

“And I said I’m not leaving without my answers. So where he is!?” Sora shouted louder.

Immediately one of the men grabbed Sora by the wrist. He squeeze it tightly as he lifted Sora off the ground with ease. Sora began to flail slightly as he tried to figure out what to do, but he was so surprised by the strength of the man he could barely move.

“Now what were you saying?” the man said as he leaned forward, his glare intense and frustrated.

Sora felt all the confidence leave him. He tensed up as he could no longer think what to do. He had been to hard headed with this plan and didn't think of the consequences. Now he was stuck in a situation that he had no idea how to even get out of. He only stayed there, frozen in place.

“Well kid? Where’s that stupid confidence of yours now?” one of the men grumbled.

“I… I um… “ Sora stammered as he tried to think of what to do or what to say. But nothing would come to his mind. Nothing at all.

“Let go of him already!” a different voice yelled.

Sora turned to see Demyx running up the ramp onto the ship and kicking the guy who was holding Sora right in the shins. The man yelled in pain as he let go of Sora, causing him to fall painfully to the wooden deck floor below. Demyx quickly helped Sora up and had him stand behind him. Within a few seconds Demyx moving around and knocked each of the men to the ground. He stood over them and glared down at them with shi arms crossed.

“Now,” Demyx started. “You are going to tell my friend the answers he needs or things will get ugly. Or really… ya know more ugly.”

“Why do you even wanna know that?” one of the men asked as he tried to push himself back up. But Demyx was quick to place his foot on the man’s chest and applied slightly pressure.

“Because. We just wanna know. So talk!” Demyx shouted as he pressed down harder with his foot.

“Fine fine. Don’t see what you could do about it anyways. But a scientist by the name of Even Gelu is the one that requested us to try and catch mer people or whatever. Unharmed of course. But we don’t know where he is located. He just showed up to us one day and paid us to use his traps until we caught something.”

Demyx stepped back away from the man and smiled “Well thank you. That’s all there needs to be then. We’ll be going now. Come on Sora.”

Demyx walked by Sora and grabbed his hand, moving quickly down the ramp and back onto the dock. He didn’t once stop or look back to see if the men were going to say anything else or follow after them. Once they were far away from the docks and near the edge of town again he finally stopped and let go of Sora.

“Just what do you think you were going to accomplish with that? Did you not see how much larger those guys were to you? You could have gotten seriously hurt,” Demyx said, frowning as he looked at Sora.

“But you just went and attacked them, so why should it matter?!” Sora said, raising his voice slightly.

“Because I know how to defend myself and I didn’t want to see those guys hurt you,” Demyx replied.

Sora puffed out his cheeks, looking like he was going to retort, but then his face relaxed. His eyes began soft and wide as they started to water. “I guess I just can’t do anything right…”

“What? Sora no that’s not it. It’s just that-”

“I mess up every time!” Sora shouted. “I don’t think and I just jump straight into something and then it ends badly. First it was Riku getting hurt because of me, then him getting captured, now me almost ruining the entire rescue mission.”

“Sora…” Demyx muttered as he saw his friend before him break down crying.

“Why do I always screw things up…?” Sora whispered as he tried to wipe away his tears.

Demyx reached out slowly and tried to placed his hands on Sora’s shoulders. He thought carefully of his next words as he didn’t want to upset him any further. “Don’t say things like that dude. Everyone makes mistakes, but we all learn from them and move on. Sure you were a bit rash back there, but we got the information we needed.”

“Y-Yeah… I guess so…” Sora said as he breathed in slowly, still trying to keep his tears from falling down his face.

“We know now that Riku is fine, but it just being held somewhere. We will have to do a bit of research, but I know we will find where this Even guy is. Okay?”

Sora didn’t say anything verbally but he nodded his head. He knew Demyx was right after all, but he had been so clouded by his emotions he hadn’t thought straight before. He still felt a bit bad about who he had acted without thinking, but was glad to have Demyx there to be sensible. With a couple more deep breaths Sora was finally able to regain his full calm composure.

“Thanks Demyx… So now what?”

“Well… It is getting into the evening so I was thinking we could get some food. It will be your first time eating anything that is made by humans so we gotta find something super tasty! But first we gotta stop by my house to get some munny.”

“Wait you have a house here?”

“Yeah after visiting so many times I figured I might as well have a home away from home. Also better than just sleeping on the streets at night ha ha. Come on, I’ll show ya around,” Demyx said as he placed a arm around Sora’s shoulder and they started to walk more into now.

“But when will we get to finding this scientist guy? I don’t wanna wait too long,” Sora said as they started into the edge of the town.

“Don’t worry we just need to prepare ourselves a little. Tomorrow first thing in the morning we will begin our search. We can’t do it all alone though, it’s a big town after all. But I got a friend here who just might be able to help us.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More plot is happening now and more questions arise. Who is Demyx's friend? Hmm the mystery is big on that one haha. But thank you for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been a bit busy, so I have not been able to write the newest chapters for my uploads on FF, but at least I still have to catch up here, so we can keep it rolling till i catch up. But thank you all for the kudos!  
> Now let's get to it!

The hours had passed and Riku eventually calmed himself down enough to go inside the one lone house in the tank to explore around. Though he saw Vanitas lounging around in the front of the house, he tried to pay no attention to him. It still gave him a double take when he glanced at him each time. He kept fearing that one of times he would look… it really would be Sora there.

He had no idea what the real time was. There was the artificial lights above the tank, and they had gone out some time ago. So by that he figured it had to be later at night. But he still was not adjusting to being in such a place. He wasn’t sure he would ever adjust to being trapped there.

He made his way to the empty bedroom and peered inside. It was just a regular empty bedroom, aside from a simple bed. It was rather amazing though that apparently Even had recreated all of this from just what Vanitas had told him. Despite being trapped there, he had to admit it was impressive to a degree. But that still did not excuse Even for capturing him at all.

Riku sighed as he entered the room and sat down on the bed. Just as he was beginning to space out he heard a noise coming from somewhere.

_Tap, tap tap…. tap tap… tap tap tap_

It sounded like someone was hitting something close by and it was echoing all around the tank. Not only that but it was done in a rythomg of three than two then three again. Riku swam out of the bedroom and saw Vanitas by the door. He turned around to look at Riku, giving a small smile.

“Time to see what I meant earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I said I had ‘two things’ that kept me going. Come on now,” Vanitas said as he swam out of the house.

Riku stared for a moment but saw that he had no other choice but to follow. Once he had swam out of the house he saw that Vanitas was swimming to the lowest area of the tank, right up to the glass. Riku quietly followed behind him and started to wonder exactly Vanitas had meant. As he got closer to the glass though he started to understand a bit more.

When he was first thrown into the tank he had not looked carefully at the glass and what laid beyond it. But in the area he was swimming too he could see that behind the glass was a room. Slightly similar to the room he had first been in, but this one was much larger. And standing right up in front of the glass… were the two young adults from earlier; Xion and Ienzo.

“What? Why are they here?” Riku asked as Vanitas now was meer inches from the glass.

There was a small circular metal device embedded into the glass and yet no water seemed to be seeping out from it. Vanitas chuckled as he cast one last glance at Riku before looking back at Ienzo and Xion. He smiled as he placed his hands on the glass, and to Riku’s surprise, Ienzo and Xion both placed one hand on the glass as well. They placed their hands on their side of the glass where Vanitas’s hands where to look as if their hands were really touching.

“The two things that have kept me going all this time… are these two,” Vanitas said as he kept looking forward, right at them.

Xion smiled. “Aw thanks Vani. But come on, you don’t have to refer to us as ‘two things’ you know,” Her voice seemed to be coming through the small metal circle that was in the glass.

“Rather be called legged weirdos again?” Vanitas replied back with a laugh.

“If you do that then we get to use old insults as well,” Ienzo said as he smirked. “Sea urchin head.”

Vanitas scowled, but it looked like he was trying to contain his laughter. Only a moment passed before all three of them started to laugh aloud. All of this was still leaving Riku with more questions than he had before.

“Wait wait,” Riku said as he swam a little closer. “I’m still confused. How can you guys be friends? I mean like… how did that happen?”

All three of them looked at one another before Ienzo nodded first. He then turned his attention over to where Riku was. “When Even adopted me and Xion, he would always bring us here to the lab. Ever since we were young we were always apart of helping him with his experiments and research.”

“Then came the day that Even told us that he had a major surprise to show us,” Xion added in. “He brought us to the lab like normal, but then we saw Vani. Both of us were so surprised and amazed to see a merfolk in person. And we wanted to know more, but Vani was rather stubborn at first.”

“I was just upset being taken from my home,” Vanitas said with a sigh. “But few months after I was first placed in this tank they started to secretly visit me at night to try and talk to me. I was resistant at first…”

“Very resistant,” Ienzo added with a chuckle. “I think I lost track of how many times you tried to make ‘angry scary faces’ to scare us away.”

“Hey to a five-year-old me, I thought I was making a good angry face. At least I’ve perfected it over the years,” Vanitas said back as he smirked.

“So you all have known each other for eighteen years then… I guess that does make sense. But you said secretly… does that mean Even doesn’t know about this?” Riku asked as he got a bit closer to the glass.

Xion shook her head. “No our father doesn’t know. Ienzo has to bypass the security cameras just so we can sneak in here. Surprisingly father has never once suspected us.”

“Why are you guys doing this in secret though?” Riku then asked, now curious to find out as much as he could.

“Because. Father wants us to help with his research on merfolk… not to become friends with one. I doubt he would really be upset if he found out about our meetings though…” Xion said as she trailed off.

“He would most likely pry us to give him as much information we know about Vanitas and the merfolk though,” Ienzo added. “Which is why we can’t let him know. We want to keep Vanitas as safe as possible as well as the rest of your kind.”

“Does… your father have any reason to harm us? Or hunt us down?” Riku asked.

“Only reason he’ll harm you is if you cause too much trouble. So you know… don’t do that,” Vanitas said as he briefly pointed to his faint scars.

“He truly only wants to learn more. As I stated before he has no ill-intentions. Just is very ambitious with his work,’ Ienzo said.

“But I can’t…” Riku sighed as he ran a hand through his now shorten hair. “I can’t just stay here forever to be his test subject or whatever. If you guys are such good friends with Vanitas, why haven’t you broken him out of here?”

Ienzo and Xion glanced at each other, both of them frowning with heavy faces. They then looked back to Riku. They seemed to wait for a moment, only looking at him, before Ienzo decided to answer. “Because… we cannot disobey our father. This is one of his most special projects and if we were to destroy it… it would hurt him.”

Xion nodded as she listened to her brother give their explanation. Then when he finished she spoke up to add more. “Besides, how would we managed to get a adult merman out of here without anyone noticing? We did think about it as children, but there was no way we could ever pull it off.”

“So…” Vanitas said as he swam over to Riku. He chuckled slightly as he placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re stuck here like me. But it isn't all that bad at least, cause you get to tell me all about my little brother now.”

“Little brother?” Xion asked.

“Oh yeah!” Vanitas exclaimed as he turned towards the glass again to look at the two humans. “Turns out Riku here is from the same village as me. Small world you know and all that. Not only that, but I found out that I have a little brother named Sora, only born like a year after I was brought here. And! The best part is that he and Riku are dating.”

Riku felt his cheeks flush. He scowled at Vanitas, narrowing his eyes. “I never said that!”

“Yeah, but you are his boyfriend, are you not?” Vanitas said as he tilted his head back to look at Riku.

“I never agreed to that either,” Riku muttered as he turned again from the group. He was trying to not pay attention, but he swore he could hear small laughs from Ienzo or Xion.

“Aw isn’t it cute how shy he is?” Vanitas taunted. “He cares so much, but doesn’t want to admit it.”

“It is pretty cute,” Xion giggled.

Riku sighed as he started to swim a away from the group, trying to relax enough to slow his heart rate. Though he could tell that his cheeks were still burning red. He couldn’t help it though. Thinking of Sora, as they were now seperated, made his feelings all the stronger. He wished dearly that he could see Sora again, to hold him in his arms. But with them being so far, it was a struggle to keep calm about it.

“Come on Riku, you don’t gotta swim away like that. I’m only teasing a little,” Vanitas called out to Riku, hoping he would come back.

Riku stopped half way before quickly turning around and swam back up to the glass. “Well I’ve never been called out or taunted on the subject before! So sorry if I am a bit flustered by it. It’s just… I really miss him. I’m glad he is safe… but I still miss him.” Riku sighed heavily as he lowered his head, slowly letting himself float back to the bottom of the tank.

The other three watched with sorrow in their eyes. None of them knew exactly what to say as they looked at the state Riku was in. They did feel bad for him, but what else could they do? Saying ‘sorry’ wouldn’t get them very far on anything and they figured Riku didn’t want the sympathy.

Xion hummed thoughtfully though as she looked at Riku. Finally a smile crept across her face. “Hey Riku? If you want to, how about you tell us some stories. Fun time or something you had with Sora when you were younger. I’ve had some friends who moved away and I was sad by that, but talking about the fun times we had together brightens me up more.”

Riku swam back up to be on level with the three and looked at Xion. “I guess so. If you guys really want to hear stories.”

“Of course!” Xion said as she clasped her hands. “We love to hear stories about your world. We’ve heard some from Vani, but since he was only five when he left, he doesn’t remember a whole lot.”

“Ah, well okay then. Let’s see…” Riku trailed off as he started to think. Soon he chuckled as good, fun memories came to his mind. “Well there was this one time Sora took a nap on the seafloor and woke back up to find several sea stars had stuck on to him.”

“Wait seriously? How did he not notice something like that happening?” Vanitas asked as he raised an eyebrow.

“Sora’s… a rather heavy sleeper. He could sleep through a pod of whales coming through the area. But, anyways when he came back, that was the true funny part…” Riku said as he began his story. Much to his surprise he was already feeling better as he talked about the story. He knew his time here wasn't going to be fun for him, but it did seem now he had some friends to pass the time with. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter with Riku Vanitas and co. And now the questions, Vanitas grew up with Xion and Iezno as his friends. I am thinking of having a ship between him and one of them. But the question is who :P  
> It shall be discovered later on! Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally over on FF I got my ch12 up, I've just been a bit delayed because I am prepping for a trip.   
> But anyways here we go with a special chapter 10.

_Flashback 18 years ago_

Little five-year-old Vanitas opened his to find that he was in a different place. He last remembered nearing the surface… but after that everything was a blur and then nothing. Now he found himself to be in an environment that was like gone… but something about it felt off. Something he had never seen before and he started to panic.

“Mommy?! Daddy?!” Vanitas shouted as he tried to swim forward. But upon moving forward a little he bumped into something that he couldn’t see. He started to sniffle as he rubbed his head. “Where… Where am I?”

He started to swim around, but every once and awhile he would bump into the invisible thing that he could not see. Though he could see through it the more he looked. And as he looked he saw strange rooms that did not look like the rooms back in his house.

“Hello?! Anyone?” Vanitas shouted, his voice shaking with fear.

He swam down towards the bottom of where he was, hoping to find something… anything. But all was empty except the sand covering the bottom as well as various different plants. But then he noticed something from the other side of the clear thing that he did not understand. There was someone there. Curious and hoping it was someone who could help Vanitas swam closer, but just as he got right up to the glass, he froze.

He had only heard stories of humans, but he had never seen one before in person. But from one glance… he knew he was looking at a human right now. With wide fearful eyes he backed away slightly, but soon he became completely frozen in place.

He then remembered… he was near the surface and had seen shadowy figures of humans… and then everything had gone black. Human’s had captured him! He was taken by humans and he didn't know what was going to happen next. Hsi eyes started to grow wide again as he began to cry straight out of fear and terror for the situation he was in.

“You do not need to be afraid little one,” the human said, and from the voice Vanitas could tell that it was a male. “I do not wish to bring harm to such a magnificent creature.”

“B-But…” Vanitas muttered, but the rest of his words came out in a jumbled wimper.

“I only wish to observe and learn more about you little one. Unless you prove to be difficult you should not have to worry about anything. Can you tell me your name?”

Vanitas shook his head as he got farther away. “No! I wanna go home! Let me go home!” Vanitas started to swim around again hitting against the invisible walls that contained him.

“Hmm I suppose it is understandable that the subject will be resistant at first. I suppose questions will have to come at a later time. For now though if you can tell me, what is it your kind eats? I would like to give you food as soon as possible.”

Vanitas stopped swimming around and shook his head. “No no! I’m not suppose to talk to humans! Mommy says they bad!”

“But you do not want to go hungry do you?” the man asked Vanitas.

Vanitas swam side to side, feeling conflicted. He didn’t want to keep talking to the human, but the human was right. Vanitas didn’t want to go without eating. But he still couldn’t trust the guy… that was what he was told to believe. But he needed food. He was hungry after all. Slowly he swam back closer to where the man was standing behind the invisible wall.

“You really can get me food?” Vanitas asked quietly.

“Yes, that is one thing I do wish to do right now. All you have to do is tell me what you like to eat.”

Vanitas pursed his lips as he thought again. He still was very wary of his human male, but he had no other choice. He was a young, hungry child and he wanted to eat. Finally he gave in and started to tell the man many of the favorite things he liked to eat. And the man seemed to be taking note of it as Vanitas spoke.

“Thank you then, I shall try to get some of these items as soon as I can for you,” the man said as he turned to leave.

“Wait! What you name?” Vanitas asked, slightly curious.

“My name is Even, now are you going to tell me what your name is?”

“Vanitas…” Vanitas answered quietly.

The man nodded his head. “Thank you Vanitas. You are going to be a big help.” With that the man left without another word.

Vanitas finally let out the rest of his fears as sobs as soon as the man left. He sunk to the bottom as he cried. He had never felt so scared and terrified in all of his life before. Then again he was only five… he hadn’t had too many experiences to terrify him yet.

_A couple days later_

Vanitas swam around the bottom of the tank. Even had finally told him what it was, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He was trapped in a big glass box with nowhere to go. And he was extremely lonely now. Sure Even came each day to try and talk to him, but that was just a boring human adult.

“Vanitas,” Even’s voice echoed through the tank from the built in speakers. “Come down to the observation room glass.”

Vanitas got up from where he was laying and slowly made his way down to the glass that showed Even standing on the other side. But this time there was something different. There was two other humans standing with him now, each of them holding one of his hands. It was a young boy human and a young girl human.

As soon as Vanitas got close enough the young girl’s eyes light up with wonder. “You found a mermaid daddy! You really found one!” She ran up right to the glass, pressing her hands against it as she stared at Vanitas who floated in front of her.

Vanitas scrunched up his nose as he glared. “I’m not a girl! Ima boy!”

The girl looked at Vanitas with confusion as she tilted her head to the side. “Huh?”

“Mermaids are girls, and mermen are boys! Get it right!” Vanitas shouted before he crossed his arms, his glare turning more into a angry pout.

‘I… I’m sorry,” the girl said, bowing her head slightly. “I don’t mean to upset you mr merman.”

“Wouldn’t he be more of a mer… boy? ‘Cause he looks to be the same age as Xion,” the human boy commented.

Vanitas stuck out his tongue at the boy, but did not answer him back. He only decided to keep glaring angrily at them, hoping they wouldn’t ask him any more stupid questions. Though Vanitas did begin to wonder just who they were, the girl had called Even ‘daddy’... so that had to mean that Even was their father. But they did not resemble him at all… Vanitas started to ponder it a bit more, wondering about it, but he left his thoughts in his head.

Even kneeled down between the two and placed a hand on the girl, that Vanitas now knew was called Xion. She turned around to look at Even, waiting to heard what he had to say. Finally after a moment he spoke up. “I think it may just be a cultural thing for them, unless the boy here just prefers to be called a man, surely you can understand that Ienzo.” Even laughed before placing his other hand on Ienzo’s head had patted it gently.

“Yeah I guess…” Ienzo answered quietly.

“Anyways,” Even said as he stood back up. “We now have a merman here and that means I can finally go through with starting one of my longest awaited projects. And…” he looked down at his children. “You two are going to help me.”

Xion’s and Ienzo’s eyes lit up. Though Ienzo just smiled happily at the thought of helping their father, Xion jumped around and giggled quite joyously. She threw her arms up in the air as she cheered, leaving Vanitas to stare with confusion and a bit of wonder.

“What are you doing?” he finally asked, coming a bit closer to the glass.

“I’m happy,” Xion answers. “So I’m doing my happy dance.”

Vanitas tilted his head to the side. “I don’t get it. I never seen dancing like that.”

“It’s how humans dance, we use our feet. But how do you dance? Do you just swim around? Like when I play in the pool? Or do you walk on the sand with your tail? Is it hard to dance underwater? Is it fun?”

Vanitas slowly started to back again as the excited little Xion started to ask more and more questions. Even finally placed a hand on her head again, causing her to stop talking and look up at him.

“Vanitas has only been here a few days Xion, do not overwhelm him with your wonderful, never ending curiosity,” Even said as he smiled slightly.

“Oooh, okay. Sorry Vanitas,” Xion replied as looked back to Vaintas.

“He still needs some time to adjust being here, but I hope soon we can learn more about you and your world,” Even said, speaking directly to Vanitas.

Vanitas didn’t answer Even, instead he only was looking at the two children besides him. The more he looked, they had to be around his age at least. Ienzo had even said that Xion looked the same age as him. Vanitas found himself wondering these thoughts about the other kids, but he still didn’t want ask them. Not yet at least.

_A few months later_

Vanitas slept on the bed that he now had. It had been a hard time trying to explain to Even, Xion, and Ienzo what his bed was, but somehow they managed to figure it out. He was thankful for that at least, as he was tired of sleeping on the sandy floors. Though overall it still did not make him feel any better.

He still was terribly scared most of the time, and he was also homesick. Everyday he would hope that his mother or father would come out of nowhere to scoop him up and take him back home. Or even that all of this was just a nightmare and he would wake up right back home. But none of those things even happened. He was still stuck here every single day and night.

Sometimes it felt even scarier at night as he was all alone. Nearly every night he would end up crying himself to sleep. He hated being alone here in the big empty tank. Even had said that they would bring in more items that were like his home, once they learned more, but it was still a long wait.

Though this night as Vanitas was trying to fall asleep he heard something. It was something faint, but he could hear… someone tapping the glass. Vanitas looked up and started to follow the sound to the source of it. He ended up swimming down to the glass that showed the observation room on the other side. And there standing on the other side of the glass were Ienzo and Xion, both of them smiling pleasantly.

“Vani,” Xion whispered. “We came to see you.”

“I said my name isn’t Vani, it’s Vanitas,” Vanitas replied with a pout.

“But it just a nickname. Just half of Vanitas. Plus Vani sounds cuter,” Xion replied as she gave a big smile.

Vanitas shifted slightly, not knowing how to reply to her comment, so instead he turned to Ienzo. “Why are you two here?”

“We know you’ve been lonely at night, so we wanted to come to talk to you,” Ienzo replied.

“But how did you get here without your dad?”

“Oh! I know,” Xion answered quickly. “Ienzo is really really really smart. He knows his way around here just like daddy, but I think even better. And he really good with the computers and made it so no one would know we are sneaking down here.”

“But _why_ are you two sneaking down here. Why do you wanna come talk to me?” Vanitas asked again.

“Cause we said we know you were lonely, so we wanna talk. And we can be friends then,” Xion said.

“Why would I wanna be friends with humans?” Vanitas scoffed as he turned around, facing his back to them.

“Because… we’re the only friends you got here. Unless our father ends up capturing more merfolk, but I think he has held off on that part for now,” Ienzo replied.

Slowly Vanitas turned his head back, glancing at the two that stood behind the glass. It was true that they were the only children at the laboratory. It was only because they were Even’s children that they were there. Vanitas never cared much about them… but the more he thought about it, he did wish that he had someone to talk to. Just naturally talk as the days were always filled with questions and things Vanitas never understood.

“You…” Vanitas started to turn around fully. “You guys really wanna be my friend?”

Xion nodded before placing her hand flat on the glass. “Yeah we do. You are a really cool merman Vani, and I’ve always wanted a friend like that.”

Ienzo then placed his hand on the glass as well. “I agree. You are the the first merfolk we have ever truly seen now. Why would we not wanna try to make friends with you?”

Vanitas started to smile as he felt a small warmth in his heart. Slowly he reached out both his hands and pressed them against the glass, lining one up with Xion’s hand and the other with Ienzo.

“Thanks… friends,” Vanitas said softly to them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally before I wrote this chapter, I was unsure if I wanted to do a flashback chapter or not. I wasn't sure how to implement it or where to add it. Then I got the idea just to put it in as I did. Hope you all enjoyed!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I am finally getting closer to catching this up with my FF version (mainly cause I got delayed on new chapters.) But chapter 13 went up today over there and now chapter 11 is here! Let's get to it!

Sora woke up the next morning, letting out a yawn. Last night after they came to Demyx’s house, he had first shown Sora around. Then after that led him to a guest room the stay the night. All of it was still so strange for Sora to see. Every human made item and all of the other things that came with being in the human world were such a wonder. He almost didn’t want to move as the bed he was sleeping in, with the covers over him, was extremely comfy. Having never slept in a human made bed, it was the start of many strange and odd experiences for him. He turned onto his side and pulled the covers tighter around him as he closed his eyes.

“Hey! Sora wake up already. It’s half past nine. We gotta get moving today,” Demyx said as he came into the room.

“Hmm but it’s so comfortable… I gotta say humans really have nice beds. So soft…”

“Well you can sleep all you want later, but we gotta move,” Demyx said before he gripped the sheet covers and ripped them off from Sora.

Sora felt the cold brisk air brush over him as the sheets left and he sat up. “Fine fine…” Sora yawned. “I’m up.”

“You’re such a lazy bum,” Demyx joked as he placed the sheets back down on the bed.

“Me the lazy bum? You’re one of the laziest mermen I ever met,” Sora replied back, letting out a chuckle.

Demyx stuck out his lip as he pouted. “Aw come on, I’m not that lazy. You saw me take out those three guys yesterday. They didn’t even know who hit them.”

“Yeah that was pretty cool. How did you even learn stuff like that?” Sora asked as he finally got off from the bed.

“From the friend we are going to find and meet up with today! She is a total expert at that defense fighting stuff. Maybe she might even teach you something,” Demyx explained as they started to exit the room and headed down the hallway to the kitchen.

“So who is she anyways? This friend of yours?”

“Her name is Kairi and she is my best human friend ever! She like… is so good at many things. Besides knowing how to fight and all. She is also super nice, just don’t tick her off or annoy her or she will kick your butt.”

Sora laughed. “Let me guess, because you know from experience?”

Demyx rubbed the back of his neck as he chuckled sheepishly. “Guilty as charged. But she usually eats breakfast at the cafe in town. So we gotta hurry if we wanna meet her. And don’t worry we will get some nice food to eat there as well!”

Demyx then grabbed Sora by the wrist and pulled him out of the house. Once Demyx locked the door he started to lightly jog down the street with Sora trying to keep up behind him. “Wait Demyx! I can’t run very well yet… ya know still new to all of this…”

“Oh! Sorry,” Demyx said as he slowed down. “Got a little excited there, but you can’t walk too slow. You can up the pace at least a little.”

Sora nodded as he started to try and move his new legs a bit faster. At first he wasn’t sure if he would even be able to understand how to do such a thing, but it just seemed to come to him naturally.

_“Maybe it is apart of the magic? Getting use to it so fast?”_ Sora began to thinking to himself as they walked down the street. _“I mean Namine has been making this potion for Demyx for years now to sneak up here. So maybe she has perfected it to make it an easy adjustment by now.”_

Sora shook off his thoughts, magic was far to complicated for someone like him. Instead he decided to take in the view of the town as they entered into what Demyx called ‘the downtown area’ as well as something else called ‘main street’. There was still so many foreign human words that Sora didn't quite get, but Demyx was doing his best to explain it all.

As they entered down the street that was the ‘main street’ Sora started to smell different things again. Wonderful and intriguing smells that were once again foreign to his senses. He looked around, trying to find the source of one of the sweet smells, but there was far to many stores filled with items of all kinds to distinguish what was coming from where.

“How come so many things have such a nice smell to them?” Sora asked as he strode alongside Demyx.

“Cause humans know how to make really good smelling things. Like sooo many things they make can have a good smell. Not just food, like almost anything! There are things called candles, and boy! They can make some really sweet candle smells. I gotta show you sometime after all this is over.”

“There’s so much to show though. Would we even have enough time after we save Riku?” Sora asked.

“I don’t know. But now that you’ve come up here and stuff, I was thinking if you ever wanted to come back, just let me or Namine know,” Demyx said as he smiled to Sora. “It would be nice having another friend from back home come join me on my adventures here.”

“Uh sure I guess. I’ll have to think about it though…” Sora said as he trailed off, once again distracted by the wonders of the human world that laid all around him now.

“Here we are! The best cafe in all of town,” Demyx said as he stopped and gestured to the building in front of them.

Sora looked at it carefully and took in each detail he could see. It, like all the other buildings, was a rectangular shape. The walls on the outside were a greyish-white, and in front of the building, was a small area with tables and chairs. There was already one person sitting down at the tables and eating, but Sora was not paying attention to them. And on the large glass window next to the door, the words _The Cafe That Never Was._

Sora tilted his head as he read the name. A moment later and glanced to Demyx. He was about to asked, but it seemed that Demyx expected his confusion. “Yeah I know, totally strange name right? I don’t know why the owner decided on such a name, but it makes it sound all fancy and mysterious. Anyways there’s Kairi!” Demyx said as he pointed to one of the people sitting at a table.

Sora looked to where he was pointing and saw a young girl close in age with him. Though maybe she was a year or so older, Sora couldn’t tel of course. But the girl had strawberry-red hair that was pulled back into a ponytail, with the end of the ponytail reaching just a half way down her neck. She wore a white shirt with a lightweight pink jacket over it as well as blue-jean shorts and pink sandals.

“Hey Kairi!” Demyx said as he walked over to the table she was sitting at.

The girl turned to look over at them, revealing her simple blue eyes, and smiled. “Demyx!” Kairi got up from her seat and gave Demyx a hug as soon as he got over to him. “Great to see you back. How have you been?”

“I’ve been good. But I’ve got something super important to tell you about. And I have a friend with me this time,” Demyx said as he turned to reveal Sora who was standing behind him. “This is Sora, one of my friend from back home.”

“Hi Sora,” Kairi said as she held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Sora nodded as he took her hand to shake. “Nice to meet you too Kairi.”

“Come, let’s take a seat and you guys can tell me what this is all about,” Kairi said as she took her seat back at the table.

Sora and Demyx then took their seats before Demyx leaned over on the table and began to whisper. “So Kairi, we really, really need your help with something. Like really need help.”

Kairi giggled a little. “Well you gotta tell me what is going on first otherwise I can’t help.”

Sora fidgeted in his seat slightly, thinking over if he could really trust Kairi. He had never actually met a human before. The only humans he ever had interacted with were all not nice and he felt uncertain what to think of her. But… if Demyx trusted her enough to be friends, Sora figured he could try to trust her as well.

“Have you ever heard of a scientist named Even Gelu?” Sora finally asked quietly.

“Hmm maybe? What brings this up though? I still need the context of all of this,” Kairi replied.

“Sora’s best bud Riku got captured,” Demyx whispered over to her again. “They weren't hunters though. They said they were just capturing to give to his Even guy. Now Sora and I are trying to get him back, but of course we have no idea where he could even be.”

“Ah I see,” Kairi said with a nod before looking over to Sora, seeing a sad look in his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that happened to your friend. But let’s see… Even Gelu… the name sounds familiar. I know I have heard that name before… maybe I read some news articles about him before.”

Kairi hummed as she leaned back in her chair. “Yeah yeah, I know I’ve read about him. He is known for his scientific discoveries.”

“Do you know where he could be though? Like where his place is or anything?” Sora quickly asked.

Kairi lowered her head slightly before shaking it. “No I wouldn’t know anything like that. But… I wanna still help you guys. If you are planning a rescue mission for your friend, then I wanna help out.”  
  
“But how are we going to find where Riku is being held or anything?” Sora asked as he slumped back in his chair.

“I got some friends who could help. They know pretty much everything that goes on in this town. They’ll know for certain where Even could be.”

“What? More hu-” Sora stopped himself from saying humans. Even though they were relatively alone on the outside of the cafe, he thought to play it safe. “More people? Is this just becoming a string of ‘I know someone who knows someone’ kind of thing?”

Demyx laughed. “Sounds like it.”

“It may seem that way, but trust me, these guys know their stuff. They will definitely have the information we are looking for.”

“Wait so you are really coming along?” Sora asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah I said I wanna help. Besides this sounds like a interesting adventure,” Kairi said as she clasped her hands together. “It isn’t a problem is it?”

Sora quickly shook his head, realizing that he didn’t want to upset her. “Oh no sorry! I just didn’t expect it. But I guess you can come along. Demyx did say you were the one who taught him how to do that cool fighting stuff. So that could be helpful.”

Kairi smiled at him. “Thanks! Let me just finish up my food and we’ll get going then.”

“Wait hold on Kairi, we haven’t eaten anything yet,” Demyx said as he held up a hand, finally sitting back down in his chair properly. “I was going to treat Sora to some food first before we start the day. And I thought no better place than _The Cafe that Never Was_.”

Kairi laughed. “All right. Food first, then adventure.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We know now the friend of Demyx is Kairi! Woo. But hmm who could her friends be? It's a wonder. But you all will find out next time! Thanks for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay let's get another chapter rolling here! Right where we left off at the cafe and all that stuff.

“So what kind of food would I get then?” Sora asked.

“Hmm… since it is your first time to he cafe, really anything would be good,” Demyx suggested.

“That’s… helpful…” Sora replied with a sigh.

“I think we should start with something simple,” Kairi said. “Maybe just a toasted bagel with some nice iced tea.”

“What do you say Sora? What do you think you would wanna try?” Demyx asked as he turned to look at Sora.

“I don’t even know what they have here to eat, so I have no idea,” Sora said. “Just get me that bagel I guess. Just something to try at least. But then we really should get going.”

“Patience Sora, you gotta eat first otherwise you’ll be starving later. Relax, we’ll just eat for a little bit and then we will head out okay?” Demyx said before placing a hand on Sora’s shoulder.

Sora breathed in a long deep breath before letting it out slowly. Once he did that he nodded as he remained himself that he had to be a bit more calm about the entire situation. He did not want to repeat what had happened yesterday. So with they waited a moment until someone came out to the outdoor section and walked up over to them, with a small pad of paper and a pen in one hand.

Sora watched as Demyx order the food for him and the man wrote it all down before returning inside the building. Sora started to fidget in his chair again, and without realizing it he was bouncing one of his legs in anxiousness. It was weird to say the least to see that he was now subconsciously doing something like that, but he realized it was probably just something that humans usually would do when they felt like that.

“So Sora,” Kairi said as she took a sip of her drink. “If it's all right with me asking… can you tell me about your friend Riku?”

Sora’s eyes widened a little as he focused his attention on her. His cheeks reddened slightly before he averted his gaze. “Um… Uh well…”

  
“Oh I'm sorry if it's asking too much. I don't want to upset you any further,” Kairi said looking a bit worried.

“O-Oh no it's n-not that,” Sora stammered. “I just don't h-have others usually a-asking me about it.”

Sora paused for a moment as he tried to compose his thoughts. Thankfully both Kairi and Demyx waited quietly for him until he was ready to speak.

“Riku… he is someone I've known since I was young. We've always been super close. Best of friend and everything. And… and well… over the years we've gotten closed and he has become someone very special to me.”

As Sora spoke, he could feel the heat in his cheeks increasing. He didn't bother to try and hide it though as he was smiling as he thought on good memories. Though as he thought on those memories, small bits of sadness snuck in. It was not enough though at the moment. Dispute missing Riku, thinking of the happier moments made it bearable. And that was all that mattered at the moment.

Kairi clasped her hands together and smiled sweetly. “Aw that sounds so cute. He must be a real nice guy from the sound of it.”

“Yeah. He’s always been really nice and caring, and strong-hearted. He always would do whatever he could to cheer me up when I was feeling down. And twice now in my life… he saved me from getting hurt. So I really gotta find him… I gotta be the one this time to save him.”

Kairi smiled as she pressed her hands to her face. “That’s so sweet and noble! And also adorable! I’m so glad you are letting me help out here, I gotta see you two together after everything. I bet you two are really cute together.”

Sora felt nervousness crept into him as he turned away. He could tell though that he was probably blushing far more than before. “W-Well I don’t know… a-about that. I m-mean… I…”

“Don’t try to lie Sora,” Demyx said with a teasing grin. “I’ve seen you guys together and you guys are like super cute. Well out of the two of you guys, you are the cute one and Riku the hot one.”

Sora wiped his head, glaring wide, surprised eyes at Demyx. And at that reaction, Demyx leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Don’t look at me like that Sora. I’m just calling it how it is. You saying you don’t think Riku is hot then?”

Sora’s face was like it was burned as he hunkered down, trying to avoid looking at either Demyx and Kairi. The more he started thinking about Riku, the more nervous and embarrassed he was starting to get. He already knew what he feelings were for Riku, but openly talking about it or being teased about it brought a whole other level to how he felt.

“Cut it out Demyx, you’re embarrassing him too much,” Kairi said as she crossed her eyes, looking directly at Demyx.

“Sorry sorry. I’ll try not to do it anymore, okay?,” Demyx said as he looked to Sora. “We still good then?”

Sora breathed slowly before he nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.” Finally with a few more deep breathed he was able to relax and sit back up straight.

After that the food was brought to their table. It was in fact just a simple toasted bagel with plain cream cheese and a glass of iced tea. Sora stared at the food in front of him at first, looking at each side of it carefully. Slowly he reached out and felt the smooth, but warm bagel’s surface.

“Hey Sora I know you are curious about human food, but you did wanna get going eventually, right?” Demyx asked.

“Oh yeah,” Sora said as he snapped out of his curiosity.

He then fully picked up the bagel. He brought it up to his mouth, waiting only a few seconds, before taking a bite out of it. Instantly his eyes widened as he tasted the food that he had now begun to eat. It was flavors and tastes that he had never experienced before, but they were wonderful. After a few bites though he placed it back down and took note of the glass that contained the iced tea. Just as before he brought it closer to himself and waited a moment, starting at it intently. He then placed the rim of the glass on his lips and took a few sips.

“Wow I never knew this stuff could be so amazing,” Sora commented as he placed the glass down.

“And that’s only the beginning. There is so much more food you can try, but again we can do it after we find Riku,” Demyx replied with a nod.

Sora nodded back and went back to eating his food. It didn’t take him long before it was all finished, but he felt like it was enough for his first time eating human food. Once Demyx paid for the meal the three of them got up and left the cafe and headed further into the town. Now Kairi was the one that walked a head of the boys, leading them.

“All right, we just gotta walk down the street a bit to the town center park,” Kairi said, turning her head back as she spoke so the boys could hear her better.

“That’s where your friends are?” Sora asked.

“Uh-huh. That’s where I usually find them anyways when they are just having fun relaxing.”

Soon the three of them came to the edge of the park, and Sora quickly looked all around, taking in as much of it as he could. It was a small park that apparently was right in the center of the town, but Sora could see that it was very popular as many people were either relaxing or walking through it.

Aside from the trees and bushes that lines the park, there was also various items with in the park such as benches or small tables. Kairi walked into the park without a word and started heading over to one section of the park that had a few small tables with chairs. Demyx and Sora quickly walked to keep up with her.

There at one of the tables sat two young men, looking close in age with Sora. One of them had more tanned skin than the other and white colored hair. The front half of his hair was straight and ran past his chin, while in back it spiked towards slightly. The other had lighter skin and had black hair. He also had sections of hair that ran past his chin, but most of it was pulled back up into a short ponytail that had the ends of the hair spike out. The white haired boy wore mostly black clothing with a few greys, and the other boy whore white clothes with black and beige.

At the small table they were at was a board with pieces on both sides. The two of them seemed to be deep in concentration staring at the pieces before Kairi walked up to them. Without a word the two looked up to see her and smiled.

“Oh hey Kairi,” the black haired boy said.

“How’ve you been?” the other asked.

“I’ve been doing fine, but I need to talk to you two briefly, can you take a moment away from your game to help me out?” Kairi asked.

The white hair boy gave a nod as he leaned back in his chair. “Sure, not like this game will take much longer anyways. I almost got him this time.”

“That’s what you said last time before I won,” the other replied with a chuckle.

“Well I didn’t expect you to find a way to do it!” the white haired boy said, sulking slightly. “I swear I didn’t see a spot for you to pull it off.”

“Heh it’s just how it goes sometimes,” the raven haired boy paused as he looked back at Kairi. “So what is it that you needed?”

“My friends over there,” Kairi said as she pointed to Demyx and Sora who were now standing besides her. “They’re kind of… on a secret mission, and they are trying to locate someone. You two have heard of Even Gelu right?”

“The scientist? Yeah, what about him?” the white haired boy asked.

“They are trying to find him… for reasons I can’t really get into now, but it is really important. Do you guys have any idea where he could be?”

The white haired boy stroked his chin in thought, humming before giving his answer. “Hmm I know we’ve seen him walking around town before to buy things. He doesn’t show his face all too often in public though. He buys what he needs and then heads up into the hillside area on the far side of town afterwards.”

“It’s private property up there, so we can assume it is his. Meaning that he probably has a lab or base of operations hidden up there,” the other boy added in.

“Would you know how we could get up there though? Like without getting caught or anything?” Demyx asked.

“That would be the trickier part. There are security cameras most likely around the building. So either you’ll have to be really sneaky or take down cameras,” the white hair boy stated as he ran a hand through his hair.

“To do that, you’ll need to find a way to disable them and shut them off. But that tech stuff isn’t really our specialty. But then you have to hope there isn’t any security guards roaming around, which I can figure there will be.”

“Ah I see. Thank you guys though. I owe you one,” Kairi said as she smiled at her friends.

“Um thank you guys,” Sora said, speaking up quietly. “This is really helpful to us.”

“Sure thing,” the white haired boy said as he smiled. “Always happy to help out Kairi and her friends. Though if you can, you gotta tell us how this all goes down. You’ve gotten us curious now.”

“I’ll let you guys know, thanks again!” Kairi said as she waved at the boys before turning to leave.

Demyx and Sora also waved goodbye before the two boys went back to their board game. Sora glanced back at them one last time before giving a heavy sigh of relief. They exited out of the park and started to follow Kairi down the street again.

“That was easier than I thought,” Sora commented as he now tried to keep pace with Kairi's walking.

“See? What did I tell you? They know their stuff. But now the difficult part is going to be sneaking up there,” Kairi said, crossing her arms and staring down at the ground.

“You don’t know anyone who knows anyone that can help us?” Sora asked, half expecting her to say yes to it, but he figured from her expression that she most likely didn't.

“No… I don’t even know how we could pull something like that off…” Kairi then trailed off as she started to think more about it.

“Maybe I could ask Namine,” Demyx suggested. “She might know some magic that could help us.”

“We could try that… hmmm I can’t of anything else,” Sora replied as he tried to think.

He thought there could be something else. But no matter what he thought, there wasn’t any good ideas that could work. He was still in a very unfamiliar environment with many strange and new things. But he knew he had to find a way. He was too far already to give up. He wasn’t ready to give up any time soon.

“But can Namine really do something like that? Is there such magic that could turn us invisible or something?” Sora asked, just trying to see if it was really worth it for Demyx to head back.

“Umm… “ Demyx rubbed the back of his head as he thought. “I’m not sure. But no harm in asking right?”

“But we’re just waiting longer then and if it ends up being pointless it is just more time wasted,” Sora replied hastily.

“Sora, you and I could look around maybe while Demyx goes to ask, maybe we could find out something else,” Kairi suggested, trying to keep the boy calm.

Sora opened his mouth to say something, he had so many thoughts on his mind and he was ready to let them fly. But he took a moment to think for once, trying to keep the calm part of his mind dominant over his anger and frustration. Quickly he closed his mouth and sighed, knowing that Demyx and Kairi probably had the better more sensible ideas.

But before he could reply, a voice interrupted the group.

“Um excuse me? I’m sorry to interrupt, but your name is Sora?” a female voice asked.

“Uh… Yeah?” Sora answered without thinking before turning around to find the source for the voice.

He turned around to find a girl older than him staring at the group. Her short black hair brushed against her face as a gentle breeze of wind flew by. She seemed to hesitate slightly, averting her eyes away from the group before looking back at them.

With a serious look in her eyes, she finally spoke up again. “I think I may be able to help you guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how many of you figured out who the two friends of Kairi were? I thought it would rather amusing to have those two appear. But now ooh boy Xion at the end of the chapter. What could happen next? Well find out next time! :D


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally we are caught up with my crosspost over on FanFiction! Woo! So that is a good thing of course, and I am thankful here for all the kudos and stuff! Thank you so much!

With a serious look in her eyes, she finally spoke up again. “I think I may be able to help you guys.”

Sora, Demyx, and Kairi stared back at the girl, all of them confused who she was and why she was there. She was alone on the street they were standing on, but her hands were holding a couple bags full of items.

“Uh what do you mean?” Sora asked.

“Hold on Sora,” Demyx said as he stepped forward, his glaze stiffening at the girl. “Just who are you and how do you know who Sora is?”

“Well I didn’t say I knew who he was. I was just confirming the name… but because of that… I do know of him,” the girl replied, pausing for a moment as she seemed to contemplate what to say next.

Sora on the other hand, wasn’t sure what to think of this girl. She knew of him? How could that he? Sora was a little worried how she would know such a thing. “H-How do you know of me?”

“It’s because…” the girl started to say before she looked around, as if seeing if someone was there. Slowly she leaned forward towards the three. “Your friend Riku told me about you.”

“Riku?!” Sora shouted without thinking. Immediately he covered his mouth, realizing he had been a bit too loud.

“How do you know about Sora’s friend?” Kairi asked, suspicion in her eyes. “Just who are you?”

The girl shifted slightly, looking around again. Finally seeing that there wasn’t anyone else around them she relaxed and sighed. “My name is Xion. Xion Gelu.”

“Gelu? Wait… you mean that…” Sora tried to finish, but Xion finished for him.

“Yes, my father is Even Gelu,” Xion answered honestly.

“So you know where Riku is then!” Sora shouted once again.

He had the urge to run forward at Xion. This girl not only knew about Riku, but she was the daughter of the man who was holding him captive. But for once he breathed deeply and tried to think. She was seemingly wanting to help. Whether she was being truthful or not, Sora wasn’t sure. But he knew just jumped at her and grabbing her, demanding answers, was not the way to go about it.

“Yes, I do know where he is,” Xion said.

“But why are you telling us this?” Sora asked, confused why she would even be there to talk to him. “Why do you wanna help us?”

“I didn’t expect to… I was only passing by, heading back home. But I overheard you three talking. And I want to help you see Riku again.”

Sora start to have his hands fidget. He started to feel more anxious know that he had a way to possible see Riku again. His trust though of Xion still was not there though. He was trying to be more sensible about it and he knew he couldn’t just trust her out of the blue. And it seemed that Demyx and Kairi agreed. Both of them still looked at Xion with heavy suspicions in their eyes.

“What reason do you have for this though? If Even Gelu is your father, why would you try to help us?” Demyx asked. “How do we know you aren’t just leading into a trap?”

“No no,” Xion replied waving her hands. “I really do want to help. Only because I want Riku to see Sora again. He’s talked about you and he misses you a lot.”

Sora felt the warmth in his cheeks return. Originally he was worried what Riku would be thinking now. There was the smallest fear in Sora that wanted him to believe that Riku hated him now. He hated him because he had screwed up again and caused him to get caught. That was the one lone fear that was plaguing deep within Sora’s mind, but he tried his best to fight it. But hearing Xion’s words did bring some reassurance.

“Oh, but wait…” Xion said as she lowered her voice. “How are you actually here right now? I mean walking around. I didn’t know that merfolk could-”

“We can’t,” Demyx interrupted. “But how we got here is nothing you need to know about. If you are keen on helping us though, can’t you like just help let Riku go?”

“I can’t do that. I can’t go against my father like that…” Xion sighed as she looked to the sigh. “But I can help you sneak in to see Riku at least. It’s all I can do.”

Demyx looked to Kairi, who gave him the same skeptical look. They both still not clearly trust Xion, even though she seemed honest enough. Then after a moment of internally thinking both of them turned to Sora to see what he had to say on the matter.

“What do you think Sora? Should we trust her?” Demyx asked after waiting a minute.

“I don’t know… But I really want to see Riku again… If this is what it takes to do it, then we gotta try. Right?” Sora said looking back and forth between Kairi and Demyx.

“Hmm… I guess you have a point,” Kairi said before turning to look at Xion again. “But I still am not to sure. How can we trust you that Riku is okay? Is there anything you can tell us or show us to prove that?”

“He’s perfectly fine, we just have him in the aquarium tank in my father’s lab. To observe him and everything,” Xion replied.

“If… If you said he has talked about me. Can you tell me what he said? That way I’ll know if you are telling the truth.”

Xion nodded, completely understanding the groups skepticism. “Last night he told my brother and me a story how you fell asleep once and woke up to have sea stars all over you. And how when you headed back to your town-” Xion tried to continue on, but Sora stepped forward and waved his hands frantically.

“No! You don’t need to go on and tell the rest. I believe you now. I can’t believe he would just tell that story…” Sora muttered, his expression turning more into a pout.

“Heh, I remember that day. Boy that was rather funny,” Demyx started as he laughed.

Sora whipped around and sent him a glare. “Don’t you start now! It wasn’t funny for me.”

“But it was for everyone else,” Demyx replied.

“What’s this all about?” Kairi asked, feeling a bit clueless as to what was so funny about it. “I want to know now what was so funny.”

“Oh it’s a super funny story, buuuut,” Demyx said as he glanced to a angry, pouting Sora. He leaned towards Kairi and whispered to her. “I’ll tell you later.”

Xion cleared her throat, drawing Sora’s attention back to her. “So, you’ll let me help you guys?”

“I guess so,” Sora answered. “So where do we go? And how are we going to get to the place where Riku is being held?”

“It has to be at night, that is the only time that we would be able to do it. My brother can disable the cameras outside temporarily, with just enough time for you three to sneak in. Tonight at let’s say… ten minutes before eleven… head up to the laboratory in the hillside. On the north east side of the gate… that’s where I’ll sneak you guys in.”

“Why so late at night though? Why not like right now?” Demyx asked.

“Because it is when my father is away from the lab, it is the best time we can do it. So please, if you want to see Riku again, it has to be done at night,” Xion said.

“All right, but you promise there is no tricks right? You promise I can see Riku again?” Sora asked.

Xion nodded. “Yes that’s right.”

“Promise?” Sora asked, giving a straight and serious look Xion.

Once again Xion nodded, giving a equally serious expression back to Sora. “I promise. But you have to understand, I can only get you to see him. There isn’t anything I can do if you want to get him out. That’s not… that’s not something I can do.”

“Why not though? You clearly feel bad for Riku being trapped there by your father right?” Kairi asked, seeing that there was slightly conflict in the girls eyes.

“I said I can’t do it because I cannot go against my father. It’s his research, and I have been helping him with it for years. If I were to destroy that… it would hurt him and me…” Xion said as she glanced to the ground. “You have to know… my father is a good man. You may not see it because he captured Riku… but he means no real harm. He is only curious about your world.”

“Hmph… I don’t know what to think about your father right now… but all that matters is that I see Riku again. That’s most important… so…” Sora sighed heavily before he continued onwards. “Thank you for trying to help as much as you can.”

“Hmm yeah…” Xion said as she finally looked up. “I’ll see you all tonight then. Don’t forget, ten minutes to eleven, okay?”

The group nodded and Xion then turned and left. Once she was gone the three looked at each other, each having a different expression of worry, but also surprise on their faces.They all then glanced back and walked Xion walk away into the distance until she was no longer seen.

Demyx finally cleared his throat. “Well that was… unexpected.”

“Yeah, that was a odd coincidence. You still think we should really trust her?” Kairi asked, looking over to Sora.

“I’m not sure… I just saw it as a chance…” Sora said, wondering if he had really made the best choice.

“I’m not sure though. It still feels a bit suspicious… If she really is the daughter of Even Gelu… I really don’t know if we can trust her,” Demyx replied.

“But she seemed nice and honest enough at least…” Sora said, letting out a long sigh. He hadn't expected this to happen, and now that it did, he had no idea what to truly think.

“Sora,” Demyx said in s serious tone. “Not all humans are nice and you know that. A lot of them may seem nice, but they can be very deceiving.” He then widened his eyes and looked to Kairi. “Oh! No offence though Kairi. You’re cool!”

Kairi smiled as she gave Demyx a small, playful shove. “None taken.”

Kairi then looked back to Sora. “I guess now we can have more time to take you around the town. Unless you wanted to think more on the plan for tonight.”

Sora tried to think for a moment, but nothing else would come to him. He ended up shrugging before he gave his answer. “A tour around the town sounds nice… I don’t know what else we would do anyways.”

“We could try to follow her,” Demyx suggested. “To see if she is truthful or not.”

“No, I don’t wanna do that,” Sora replied as he shook his head. “I wanna trust her. I really wanna believe she is going to help us… so she has to trust us as well.”

“All right then. If that’s what you want. So do you want a tour around the town then?” Demyx asked.

Sora smiled, putting away any worries he had at the moment. “Sure sounds fun!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now I just gotta finish up working on chapter 14 now and we will be one step closer to the end. Thank you all for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just uploaded chapter 14 over on Fanfiction! and that means I can do it here as well! Woo so there is that! Hope you guys enjoy the next chapter!

The tour around the town was far more exciting than Sora had expected. He had expected it to be quiet amazing to see, but never before did he think he would ever see so much of it. Kairi and Demyx first continued showing Sora around the main part of town, with Kairi giving nearly a history lesson about various historical buildings.

They also headed down towards the shores of the town, opposite of the docks. There Sora got to see the clean and beautiful beach with children running around and playing in the shallow water. Sora took the moment though when there to walk to the edge of the shore and let the waves wash up over his feet.

He wanted to go back home already. Not that he wasn’t enjoying the sights of the human world. But he missed his home. He missed his family and his friends. He understood now for many reasons why Demyx enjoyed coming up here, but for him it wasn’t the same. It was cool and fascinating to see, but it wasn’t his thing. He stood there, still staring out, making his longing to return to the waters even stronger. He sighed though, knowing that his task was not done yet. He still had to get to Riku and then find a way to save him.

There was a chance he had now. He had gotten a chance to find a way to save Riku. He wasn’t sure how he would even do it, but he knew he had to find a way. He wasn’t sure if Xion would tell Riku that he would be coming or not, but he could only hope. Or if she wasn’t able to tell him, it would maybe for more of a surprise. Sora wasn’t sure which he thought was better, but he didn’t linger too much on it as he turned around to head back to Demyx and Kairi.

  
Xion had returned to the lab and headed inside to the break-room. She placed down the bags she had, some of which contained food. Once everything was away that needed to be, she took a small yogurt cup from the fridge and sat down at the table.

As she ate, her thoughts started to run about the encounter she had just had. That event was something she did not expect to happen. At first she thought it was just a coincidence, with someone having the same name; Sora. But as soon as he curiosity made her look, she knew all too well that it was more than just that.

 _“They really do look similar…”_ Xion thought to herself. _“Maybe I should have told Sora about Vani… but from what Riku said, Sora probably doesn’t even know Vanitas exists. Maybe that will be more of a surprise then when they come… I still need to talk to Ienzo about it first.”_

Xion sighed to herself as she leaned back in the chair. She knew Ienzo would understand the situation. But the hard part would be trying to convince him. It wasn’t that he would oppose the idea of letting in Sora to see Riku… Xion knew it wasn’t that case. She knew her brother also felt bad that Riku was separated from him. There were still days where the two of them wished they could truly do something more, something to help.

But they still did not want to hurt their father’s heart. He was the one who took them in and adopted them. Gave them love and kindness and always would make time for them. Instead of being a father that always worked too hard and never had time for them, he would always bring them with so they could work alongside him. Early on Ienzo and Xion learned that their father was amazing at his work and they found themselves wanting to help him more and more. So to go against him like that, and ruin his research… it was not something they thought of ever doing.

While Xion continued to think through her thoughts, the door to the break-room opened up and none other than Ienzo stepped in. He gave a smiled as he took off his lab coat, revealing his grey sweater vest and black pants underneath. After placing the lab coat on the coat rack he headed over to the fridge and looked around inside. He picked out a small bowl containing salad that was garnished with small fruit bits. When he closed the fridge, he walked to the table and sat down across from Xion.

“How was the trip into town?” Ienzo asked casually as he opened up the salad and began to eat it.

“It was good… though…” Xion paused for a moment as she tried to think of how to phrase her next sentence. “I ran into someone… someone that I never thought to see.”

“Oh? And who would that be?”

Xion looked around the room, even though fully knowing it was just the two of them at the moment. She leaned forward on the table, getting closer to her brother. With them being alone, she still felt it was better to talk as quietly as possible about it.

“I saw Sora.”

Ienzo raised an eyebrow, confused by her statement. “What? Sora?”

“Sora. Riku’s boyfriend… Vanitas’s younger brother,” Xion replied.

“But…” Ienzo placed down the fork he was using to eat his salad and stared directly at Xion. “Like in town? Or by the water?”

“No I mean in town. Like walking around on legs and everything,” Xion replied as she shook her head slightly. Even now she still did not understand how it was possible, but she knew it had in fact happened.

“But how…? How is that possible?” Ienzo asked. “Vanitas never told us merfolk could do anything like that. Unless he was too young to know about such a thing…”

Xion shook her head again, remembering the words that the other man had said. “No I don’t think it is something they could do. There was two others with Sora. One of them I know for sure is a merman ‘cause of what he said. There was also a girl with them, but not only have I seen her in town before, but also she didn’t seem to know as much as Sora and the other one did. So I figured she is just friends with them, but is human.”

“But how did they even get on land then? That is the part that doesn’t make any sense,” Ienzo said as he started to think it over.

“I don’t know. I didn’t catch most of their conversation as it wasn’t my business. But when I heard his name, I looked and saw him. He does have a strong resemblance to Vanitas.”

“So… where are you leading with this? You must have done something correct? I would assume that you of all people didn’t just stare and then walk away,” Ienzo said.

“Yeah… I ended up talking to them and…” Xion trailed off as she took in a deep breath. “I promised Sora and his friends that I would help them sneak into see Riku tonight.”

Ienzo’s eyes widened. “What? Xion you know that we can’t-”

“I only said that they could see Riku. I told them that I couldn’t help get him out. I did tell them that. Told them I don’t want to upset father… but I wanted Sora and Riku to at least see each other again.”

“But that is a big risk to try and sneak them in,” Ienzo replied.

“I know, I know. But that is why I need your help. So we can get them in safely tonight. Please Ienzo, I know you too wanna help cheer up Riku. Right?”

Ienzo sighed as he averted his gaze. He agreed with Xion, though he had the same level of confliction as her. They both wanted to help Riku feel better, but they didn’t know how to. They knew he was clearly not happy there and probably never would ever completely cheer up given his circumstances.

Finally he sighed and gave his answer. “Yeah, you’re right. It is still risky, but I know you were doing it with good intentions. Did you set up a proper time and place though for them to meet you?”

“Uh-huh. Tonight at the northeast side of the gate at ten minutes to eleven.”

“Okay, that’s easy enough then. But there is still one thing I am wondering about…”

“And what’s that?” Xion asked.

“How are we going to get Sora to leave then? We can’t let him stay of course and we can’t have him try to break Riku out. That would cause a mess for sure.”

“I don’t know about that… he knows though that I can’t do it. But… But maybe Sora and his friends could find a way? And then… then Vanitas could be free to go back home…” Xion trailed off as she looked down at the table.

“Yeah… that would be nice…” Ienzo added quietly.

Xion finally sat back properly in her seat and a uncomfortable silence entered the room. Both of them had always had the thought of finding a way to get Vanitas back to the ocean. They knew that he had grown use to being here, but he did wish to go back home. It was only in his nature to want to be out there in the open waters. But as the years went by, they spent more time with him, and they got closer to him. They were his only friends he had, and he grew to liking them over time.

But while they did wish they could get Vanitas home… even if they were able to do such a thing… it would be hard for all of them. They had all grown so close over the past eighteen years. Nearly every night Xion and Ienzo would sneak into the lab to talk to Vanitas. They had gotten to know him… and the thought of never seeing him again… it worried them a lot. It was all apart of their confliction. They wished for Vanitas to return home safely… but they knew it would hurt all three of their hearts for that to happen. There was a unspoken bond between the three of them, and not one of them wished to break it.

“Should we tell Riku and Vanitas though?” Ienzo asked. “Wait did you even tell Sora about Vanitas?”

“No I didn’t. And I don’t think we should tell Riku or Vanitas. Just in case something goes wrong… I don’t want to get up their hopes over it. But if it does work out, it would be a nice surprise for both of them.”

“You do have a point there. So… “ Ienzo gave a sharp exhale. “I guess we are really doing this tonight.”

“Yeah seems like it,” Xion agreed. “Now all we have to do is wait.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty. Just a few more chapters to go. Not sure exactly how many... I may go over May by a few days lol. But hmm both Iezno and Xion care for Vanitas. Where will I got with this? Who knows haha.  
> We will have to see. But thank you all for reading again!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I thought I would finish today. But this chapter got to be very long at a point and I ended up spiting it up. So I am going to be posting into June. But that's fine of course, cause I know you are all enjoying the story!

Ch.15

The day for Riku was what he had expected, as Vanitas had told him what happens most days, but it still felt like it dragged on forever. It was mostly being observed by Even and being asked series of different questions, most of which Riku gave half or vague answers as he did not want to let Even know everything.

Even of course seemed disappointed in that, as Riku was older than Vanitas when captured. That meant of course Riku knew far more about the merfolk culture that Vanitas did, but Riku still refused to give everything away. Though Vanitas said that he should at least tell some things to Even, to satisfy the man, but Riku wasn’t entirely sure on the idea.

There was a few other small tests that happened, with seeing how fast Riku could swim or how strong he was. All of it felt tiring and boring to Riku. There was hardly a time in the day that he got a moment alone. And he also noticed how Xion and Ienzo acted in the day compared to the night. They were still friendly and polite, but they were far more serious and studios in the day time. It made sense of course as they were working along with their father during each of the tests.

As much as Riku wanted to despise Even, he couldn’t help but notice that Xion and Iezno were right about something; he was a good father. As Riku would wait between tests and examinations, he would notice Even talking to his children. He saw how happy they looked together, smiling like a good family, and he saw that Even was actually a nice man. Riku figured that if it weren’t for Even capturing merfolk to learn about them, maybe he wouldn’t be so upset with him.

But eventually the day came to a close and Even ended the sessions for the day. The work and information gathered during the day was wrapped up and finished as the three humans soon left. Then it was only Riku and Vanitas left just like the day before. The hours started to pass though as the two awaited for Iezno and Xion to come, but neither of the two merman talked to one another.

Riku slowly swam around the bottom of the tank, looking only at the ground. Occasionally he lowered his hands and let his fingers gently run through the sand. He mostly was just losing himself to his own thoughts. He didn’t have much reason or want to do anything else, but swimming in a small pattern seemed to keep him calm at least.

Vanitas on the other hand was swimming a bit faster a few feet above Riku. He would swim side to side before doing a flip or just swimming backwards. Eventually he left out a sigh and dived down to where Riku was and swam right up in front of him, stopping Riku in his tracks.

“Come on, can’t we find something more entertaining to do? I finally get a roommate after eighteen years and all you wanna do is swim around and brood.”

“I’ve only been here about a day, so you cannot say I’ve always been brooding,” Riku responded as he let out a short sigh.

“Okay fine, yeah I know. But so far you’ve just been brooding or sulking the entire time, except when you told those stories last night. Those were pretty good,” Vanitas replied with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I guess…” Riku muttered as he glanced away from Vanitas.

“You going to continue to brood then?” Vanitas asked.

“It’s hard okay?” Riku replied quickly as he looked back to Vanitas. “You don’t understand how hard it is for me to look and talk to you…”

“It’s cause I nearly look and sound like Sora right?” Vanitas answered in a honest tone, surprising Riku slightly. He didn’t expect Vanitas ti catch on to it, but the more he thought about it, it made sense.

“Yeah… that’s right,” Riku answered back.

“Well I’m sorry, I can’t really change that. It’s just something you have to get use to.”

“But I just can’t _get use to_ it. It’s just…” Riku let out a sharp exhale. “Forget it…” He turned around and swam away from Vanitas, more towards the house.

Vanitas watched Riku swim away and then sighed himself. He understood that Riku was having a hard time. Riku was older than he was when taken and brought here, so obviously he had different views and feelings towards everything. Riku had already been living a nice and happy life for nineteen years before he was captured and brought here… Vanitas hardly had much of anything. By this point Vanitas could hardly remember his life back out in the ocean. It was all hazy except for a few memories of his parents. It didn’t bother him as much as it did when he was younger. He had practically grown up trapped here and it was just something he became accustomed to. Though he still wished he could learn more about back home. He knew Riku could tell him, but it seemed it would take more time before that could happen.

It had grown later into the night, and soon Ienzo and Xion would show up and talk for awhile. Vanitas swam back and forth as he waited for them, while Riku had already gone into the house. It was started to get a bit later than usual from what Vanitas could tell and neither of the siblings were showing up.

 _“Was there a late night event they went to or something? Surely they would have told me beforehand… unless it was a last minute surprise from their father,”_ Vanitas thought to himself as he started to swim in circles.

A little more time passed and Riku soon came out of the house. “Aren’t your friends supposed to be showing up soon?”

“Yeah, but I guess something came up. Wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. I just wonder where they are.”

But just after Vanitas spoke the quiet tapping on the glass was heard. Vanitas smiled before letting out a chuckle. “And how is that for timing Heh, come on let’s go.”

The two of them swam down and saw Iezno and Xion standing there like they always did. Xion smiled greatly at Vanitas and then placed her hand on the glass. Ienzo followed and waited for Vanitas to place his hands over theirs. It was their little tradition they always did since they were little, and they still followed with it to this day.

Riku swam a little closer, just observing though. It wasn’t his business to get in the way of them. He could see that they were close anyways and did not want to interpret. But before anyone could say anything a voice from the shadows spoke out. It was hard for Riku to see past Ienzo and Xion, as they had the lights off in the room to better stay hidden, but Riku could tell that someone was there. Or really several… he could tell that there was at least three figures in the shadow.

“Riku…?”

Riku froze up as his eyes widened. Slowly he approached the glass until he was just right up against it. He squinted as he looked out through the glass, trying to focus on the shadowy figure a few feet away. But he didn’t have to wait long as the figure stepped forward. Letting the glowing light from the tank reflect onto their face. Their young and sweet… familiar face.

Riku nearly felt his heart drop as he stared. “S-Sora?” He almost felt like he couldn’t breath. He had no idea if he was dreaming this or was just hallucinating. But he was seeing Sora right in front of him. Not only that, but Sora had legs and human clothes! It didn’t make sense to Riku, leading him further to believe that he was just imagining it all. But soon enough Sora teared up and stepped right up to the glass.

“Riku! It’s r-really you!” Sora sobbed as he pressed his hands and forehead against the glass. “You’re really o-okay! I… Riku…”

“Wait… Sora… you’re really here? And… but how…?” Riku asked, trying to process what was happening in front of him.

“He came all this way to find you,” Xion answered, proving that Riku had not imagined anything that was happening in front of him. “And I only ran into him by chance, but I wanted to help out.”

“Hey I helped out too,” another familiar voice said before another figure stepped closer to the glass. To Riku’s surprise he now saw Demyx standing just behind Sora.

“Demyx?”

“Yeah, how else do you think Sora got up here on to the land? He needed help from an expert.”

“Riku,” Sora said in between a sob, paying no attention to Demyx talking. “You’re okay. I was so worried! I mean… I… I’m sorry… and… and… I-” Sora started to stumble and stutter more, so Riku thought it was best to cut him off as quickly as he could.

“Sora, calm down. It’s okay. You’re right, I’m perfectly fine. Take a deep breath, and try to calm yourself down,” Riku spoke in his soft and gentle voice, knowing Sora would slowly start to listen to him.

And just as he expected, Sora breathed in and he seemed to be calming down. Though there was still tears filling his eyes and he couldn’t stop looking at Riku. “Riku… I’m so sorry though…” Sora muttered as he lowered his head. “I’m sorry I let this happen.”

“Hey… I said it’s okay,” Riku said. “I told you before and I’ll say it again; I don’t hate you Sora.”

“I know, b-but… but I let this happen… you got captured and… and…” Sora raised his head up again to look at Riku, but he stopped.

His eyes then slowly shifted over to next to Riku. It was now that Sora’s eyes widened as he stared at the merman who was next to Riku. Sora breathed slowly as he made proper eye contact with Vanitas, and Vanitas in turn did the same. Sora slowly took a few steps closer to where Vanitas was and pressed his hands against the glass again.

“You… You’re…” Sora muttered. “Vanitas…”

Vanitas, as well as everyone else, stared at Sora, clearly shocked. Though Vanitas was the first one to speak up. “Wait you actually know who I am?”

“Um… Mom and dad told me once… when I was little. It was just after…” Sora glanced to Riku, taking one quick look at Riku’s scar before looking back at Vanitas. “After something… and they told me how I had a older brother named Vanitas. They said he either was killed by hunters or swam away somewhere and never came back. So we never really talked about the subject much… cause they were saddened by it.”

“Well that never actually happened. I was actually captured and I’ve been here all my life,”  
Vanitas said as he leaned closer to the glass.

Sora then glanced to Xion. “If you knew who I was, why didn’t you tell me about Vanitas being here beforehand?”

“I thought it would be a surprise, besides I didn’t know that you actually knew about him,” Xion answered honestly.

“Either way it is nice for this to happen,” Vanitas said, drawing Sora’s attention back to him. He gave Sora a friendly smile. “It’s great that I am finally getting to see and meet my little brother. I’ve already met your boyfriend though of course.”

Sora’s face reddened as he backed away from the glass. He turned to Riku with a expression that read that he was internally freaking out inside. “Riku?! You just went and told him that?”

Riku’s own face reddened as he shook his head. “No! He just assumed and figured it out on his own. I swear that I didn’t tell him.”

“And now you two make it all the more obviously. Which of course makes it all the more cute,” Vanitas snickered.

Both Riku and Sora turned to glare at Vanitas, who only laughed at them. Everyone else in the room seemed to start laughing as well at the sight of the two flustered boys. But soon enough everyone seemed to calm down. Sora took in one long deep breath before letting it out. He looked back at Riku.

“Your hair… what happened to it?”

Riku sighed as he ran a hand though it, still finding it weird to be that short. “It was cut when I was unconscious…”

“Hmm well I think it’s a good look for you,” Sora replied, giving a sweet smile. “I actually like it short like that.”

Riku smiled back at Sora, feeling happier than he did before. “Thanks Sora.”

Sora then turned to look at Ienzo and Xion, who had been politely standing off to the side as they let the reunion take place. “Please… isn’t there anything you guys can do? Let us find a way to get Riku… and also Vanitas out of here?”

“It’s too risky to pull off a stunt like that. I’m sorry,” Ienzo answered. “There are far to many variables in something like that to hope that it would go right. There is no safe way we could transport two fully grown merman without getting caught by someone.”

“But wait,” Demyx said speaking up. He walked a little closer to Sora before glancing to Ienzo and Xion. “I guess since you guys have helped us out you can know… Sora you still got the potions remember? Namine gave us six total, we used two before and that means we have four extra right now. So there is enough for both of them.”

“But how do we get back then? I thought that-”

“No it’s two different potions to change back and forth,” Demyx quickly explained. “Namine just gave extras in case something happens. And good thing too.”

“Wait potions are how you are able to have a human form?” Ienzo asked. “Fansicanting. We knew merfolk had some magic affiliation, but I never knew it would be something like that.”

“We aren’t letting you examine the potion,” Demyx scowled as he glared harshly.

“I never said that. I only was intrigued by the method how you were able to become a human. Though… I swear I’ve seen you before… in town.”

“Of course you have, I’ve come up here a lot. But don’t go telling anyone, ‘kay?” Demyx asked, now seeming far more casually.

“Yeah… okay,” Ienzo replied.

Sora looked down at the case that was still wrapped around him. He picked up it and opened it, looking at the potions. He then looked back to Xion and Iezno with a pleading glance. “But that means… please? Please we can do it this way right? You gotta let us do it this way. It’s far safer. It would work.”  
  
“Well… I guess if you do have a method to transform yourselves into humans… it would make things easier… but…” Ienzo trailed off as he placed a hand to his chin, letting himself go deep in thought.

Xion grabbed onto his other hand and gave it a squeeze. “Come on Ienzo. I know you wanna help as much as I do.”

“But father… and his research…” Ienzo started to say, but he ended up trailing off.

“I know…” Xion sighed sadly. “We don’t wanna mess it up. But… Vanitas deserves to be out in his home, and not trapped here his entire life.”

Vanitas cleared his throat, interjecting himself into the conversation. “I’m right here you know. I know you guys want what you think is best… but I don’t even know anymore. It’s been eighteen years… so much as changed probably…”

“You gotta come back!” Sora shouted. “Now that I know you are here, I wouldn’t wanna leave here without you. It would feel wrong to leave you trapped here. I won’t do it, I won’t leave you behind.

Chuckling Vanitas smiled again at Sora. “It’s good to know that you sound as stubborn as I can be. All right then, if we can do this… then I’ll come.” Vanitas then slowly turned to look back at Xion and Iezno, waiting carefully for their answer.

“Okay fine, since you have those potions. We could easily do this then… We just still have to be quiet about this,” Ienzo answered finally. “We’ll open the pathway to the labroom tank, you two head up there and we’ll all meet you there.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go for that. I decided to go from Riku and Vanitas's view point rather than showing Sora coming it. Thought it was a better surprise that way. Hope you guys enjoyed though!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I did it again haha. I kept writing so much that I had to split off the chapter again. I swear the story is getting close to being done, but there is just more I keep writing haha.   
> But anyways lets get to this chapter!

Ch.16

The group then headed out as Vanitas and Riku stared to swim upwards. There was a small glass circular doorway that was near the surface of the tank. When it was open it would lead to the small tank that Riku had first been in when he first woke up here. The two of them started swimming in silence, but soon enough Vanitas seemed to have something on his mind that he wanted to get out.

“So this is really happening then..”

“Yeah looks like it. Aren’t you happy though? You’re going to get to go back home, see your family again,” Riku replied as they now waited for the door to open.

“That’s true… it’s just… I’ve grown used to being here… mostly just being around Iezno and Xion. I said it before, without them being here for me… I would never have been able to make it this far without going insane.”

“So it’s hard that you are going to be leaving right?”

“Only hard to be leaving them… don’t care for the rest of it. But they always wanted to find a way to help me escape… so it’s nice they are staying true to that,” Vanitas replied softly.

The door then opened up and RIku swam through first with Vanitas following behind. They swam through carefully until they came out into the tank that was in the labroom. It was a small tank, but thankfully had enough room for both of the merman to stay in there comfortably. Iezno, Xion, Sora, and Demyx were now all standing in the room. And now Riku could see that the third shadow he had seen was a girl with reddish hair. He could only figure that she was a friend of Demyx’s and came along to help.

Ienzo pressed a few buttons before the top of the tank opened up above Vanitas and Riku. Once it was open the two of them broke the surface of the water and leaned out of the tank slightly. Before anyone could say or do anything more, Sora Ran forward and wrapped his arms tightly around Riku.

“Riku…” he whispered softly. He tried to say more, but his wasn having a hard time processing everything that was happening. He could only say the name and that was it.

Riku smiled and he wrapped his arms back around Sora. “Hey Sora. It’s been what… like a day? You miss me that much?”

“Of course,” Sora whispered back. “Didn’t you miss me?”

“You know I did,” Riku said as they pulled back from their hug. He gave Sora a kind and honest smile to prove his point.

The clearing of someone’s throat distracted the boys and they pulled away from their hug now completely and looked to the rest. Ienzo looked at each of them with a serious look in his eyes. “As touching as it is to see you two together, we should hurry this along.”

“Right… Sorry…” Sora mumbled as he opened up the case again and started to pick out a potion to give to Riku.

“Hold on Sora. We can’t just give them a potion right away,” Demyx turned to Ienzo as he spoke. “You wouldn’t happen to have extra lab coats around here or anything clothing wise? Cause you know this aren’t just half way potions. They transform the whole way… ya know… we don’t need to be walking around with two naked guys even it if is late at night.”

“Oh! That would make sense. Let me go grab something then,” Ienzo said as he quickly exited the room.

“So these things really work?” Vanitas asked as he glanced to the potions.

“Yeah, how else do you think we managed this? It takes a bit of getting use to, but Sora got the hang got it quickly,” Demyx replied. “Oh! By the way, this is Kairi!” Demyx guestered to the girl standing behind him.

“Hi,” Kairi said as she waved. “I just kind of came along for the adventure.”

Iezno returned a moment later with two lab coats. “We only have lab coats here obviously, but it will be enough to cover up.” He placed then on the table next to the tank for the time being.

“Okay… then it’s time,” Sora said as he handed on potio to Riku and another to Vanitas.

“Just drink this stuff?” Vanitas asked as he held up the bottle to look at the liquid contents.

“Yup, then you just wait a bit before the transformation. That’s all there is too it,” Demyx answers. “Though hey Kairi, do you think you could look away? You know, the whole human privacy thing you told me about?”

“Oh! Right,” Kairi chuckled, a slight bit embarrassed. “Sorry about that.” Kairi then turned around, facing away from the tank.

Iezno on the other hand reached over and covered Xion’s eyes. Xion frowned and tried to move away from her brother, but he held her tightly. “Ienzo! What do you think you’re doing?”

“You heard what he said. They’ll transform and be without clothes. So you don’t get to see that.”

“I’m twenty-three, you don’t have to cover my eyes like a child. I can look away like Kairi is doing,” Xion protested.

“And I don’t trust you. As your older brother I can do what I want to make sure you stay true to that word,” Ienzo replied with a small smirk.

“I don’t get it…” Riku said as he stared at the siblings. “What’s the deal about this?”

“It’s a human thing… don’t worry about it,” Sora replied. “But come on we don’t have all night.”

“Right,” Riku replied, not really knowing what else to say about the topic. Humans were weird after all.

Vanitas and Riku opened up the potions before slowing drinking them down. It only took a few moments before the transformation took place and Vanitas and Riku were now standing upright in the tank. Though they stood on wobbly legs, holding the rink of the tank for support. Demyx and Sora quickly ran over to them though and helped them down and out of the tank. Once they saw that Riku and Vanitas were stable and able to stand on their own, they helped them get the lab coats on and buttoned them up so the two guys would not be as revealing.

After that was done Demyx told Kairi she could look again as Iezno finally stopped covering Xion’s eyes. And as soon as her eyes could see again, she stared right at Vanitas. Without a word she ran over to him and nearly tackled him back. With only just getting legs, he was not ready for such a force and almost fell to the ground. He did what he could though to brace himself and managed to hold his ground.

He smiled as he wrapped his arms tightly around Xion, and rested his face against hers. “Never expected something like this to happen.”

“Me neither,” Xion agreed, smiling as she leaned her face more against Vanitas’s. “But it’s nice.”

“Hmm yeah…” Vanitas then glanced over to Ienzo, who stood to the side. He only stared at them, not saying a word. Vanitas smirked as he loosened his grip from Xion and took a few steps over to Ienzo. “Don’t worry Ienzo you can be included too. He then grabbed Ienzo by the arm and pulled him into a hug between the two of them.

Ienzo hesitated slightly before he returned the hug back to Vanitas. He chuckled softly as he stayed in the embrace. “It’s such a weird thought. To think after eighteen years… you are standing here, right in front of me. And… And…” Ienzo trailed off, trying to figure out his words.

Xion stepped closer, and put her arms around both guys. “And it’s something wonderful, right?”

“Yeah, exactly that,” Ienzo replied.

Vanitas adjusted himself so he was now holding Xion in one arm and Iezno in the other. They stood there while the four others tried not to stare for too long, but they could feel the warmth in their hearts at the sight. Though after a moment Sora looked away and turned his attention over to Riku. He couldn’t wait any longer and threw himself at him again, and held him tightly. He rested his head gently on Riku’s shoulder while Riku took a moment to steady himself after the unexpected hug attack from Sora.

Riku moved one hand up and started to run his hand through Sora's spiky hair. He leaned in close to Sora's ear and began to whisper softly. "I didn't think you would come. I wasn't sure if, you know…"

"I had to come rescue you," Sora whispered back. "It was my fault anyways that you got captured. It only makes sense that I come and save you."

"Thank you Sora," Riku replied simply.

Though Riku had thanked him, Sora was not done yet. He still had so much more he wanted to say to Riku. "I know you had told me to stay down where it was safe… but I couldn't do that. I wasn't going to sit around for the rest of my life not doing anything. So I did the other thing you told me… which was to be strong. I decided to face my fears and take a step forward."

Riku smiled again. "I'm proud of you Sora and impressed. And also just so so happy to have you in my arms again."

"Same here," Sora replied.

After a moment they both realized that everyone else must have been staring at them. That had nearly forgotten that they were in even in a room with other people. Quickly they let go and saw that in fact everyone was staring at them. But they all have kind smiles, though Vanitas looked more like he was smirking. Riku and Sora could only wonder want teasing things he was thinking in his head.

“All right, are we all ready to go then?” Demyx asked once he saw everyone had finished having their heartfelt moments.

“Yeah, let’s head out,” Sora commented.

“Oh and don’t worry,” Demyx said as he looked to Ienzo and Xion. “I’ll make sure to return the lab coats to you guys as soon as I can.”

“No, we’re going to come along with you guys,” Xion answered. “We want to make sure you all get back home safely.”

Sora stared at the two of them with a worried glance, he then turned to look at Demyx and Kairi, wondering what he should do. It was true that Ienzo and Xion had indeed helped him get into the laboratory, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted them to follow back to the secret location. They were still humans after all and then ones who were apart of keeping Vanitas there, even if they did want to somehow get him home, but never were able to.

“They are coming with,” Vanitas answered sternly. “I’ve been around them long enough to know that you can trust them.

“All right, if you say so, but let’s get a move on already,” Demyx instructed as he headed over towards the door.

With everyone in cooperation they headed out of the lab. Ienzo and Xion ended up taking the lead, so they could lead everyone out safely as they could. Sora saw then that it was actually a good idea that they were coming along. They knew the way of the lab after all and they could get them all out without catching the attention of any security guards.

Aside from that Sora could also see how they were in fact good and nice humans. Sora still had a bit of a mixed opinion on them… on humans that is. But on his journey so far he had met several kind hearted humans who wanted to help. It was rather unexpected to him that he would ever encounter those like that, but he realized that there was good and bad humans, just as there was good merfolk and bad ones.

_“I gotta remember to thank them before we leave… and Kairi too. And to tell her to thank her two friends. So many people to thank, but they all deserve it,”_ Sora thought to himself as he quietly followed with everyone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I am close to being done, I still have somethings in life that will prevent more writing. Going on vacation for a bit and only having phone makes things harder. But I will finish it eventually! But thank you all so far for the kudos and everything! I am happy to see people have been enjoying this!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am still on vacation, but I have managed another chapter!! Sorry for the wait. But hey guess what?! I still rambled on it so this story gets to be even long lol! Enjoy!

Soon they came to the door that took them out of the laboratory, the same one that they had snuck in at first. Quietly the entire group ran across to the gate and Ienzo unlocked it for everyone. After that they all continued their way down, back towards the town. It was past eleven at night now, so not many people were out, but everyone still decided it was best to stick to the shadows. 

No one really talked though as they proceed it, most likely due to the fact that they were all tense about making their way safely to the ocean. Sora looked and noticed that Vanitas was walking between Ienzo and Xion. The two humans had a hand interwoven with Vanitas’s, and Sora could see that Vanitas was holding their hands back tightly. Sora gave a small smile at the sight. He still wanted to get a proper chance to talk to Vanitas, but he knew it could wait.

But seeing them did give him a little idea. He picked up his pace and walked up alongside Riku, and without speaking up he reached out and wrapped his hand around Riku’s. Riku made a quick questioning humming sound before turning to see Sora next to him. He didn’t say anything though, only smiled in return and gave Sora’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Sora smiled even larger than as they got to the edge of town and entered into the forest. He knew now that they were almost home, and then everything would go back to normal. Everything would be fine again and he could be happy. They eventually came upon the area in the forest where Demyx’s secret entrance to the cave was. He stopped right in front of it before turning to the group. 

“Okay! So we are about to enter my super secret hideout entrance. Sora, Riku, Vanitas, you guys are good for this part, you don’t have to say anything. But you three,” Demyx said as he pointed to Kairi, Xion, and Iezno. “You three gotta swear that you will not talk about or show this location to anyone else.”

Kairi nodded as she looked back at Demyx, a simple smile shown on her face. She held up a hand, as if giving an oath. “You know you can trust me Demyx. I won’t tell anyone.”

“And you two?” Demyx said, focusing his attention to them.

Xion and Ienzo glanced at each other before slowing nodding their heads. They also each held up a hand. 

“I promise we won’t tell anyone,” Xion said.

“Not even our father,” Ienzo added afterwards. 

“Are you sure?” Demyx said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“Yes. We never told him about out meetings with Vani each night so we can keep this hidden from him as well,” Xion replied. 

“Okay then! We’re all set, so let’s continue on,” Demyx said as he turned to the disguised wall against the cliff. He seemingly reached behind it and pulled it, starting to move it out of the way to reveal the secret entrance. “This way guys, it’s going to be a bit dark, but just follow the side of the wall.” 

Everyone followed behind in a single file line, carefully keeping to the side of the wall. After the short way, they came to the cave area, that was still lit up from before. Demyx walked over to the one create against the wall. “Now let’s see… I should have one spare left here…” he only was muttering to himself, but he could easily be heard by everyone. 

“A spare what?” Sora asked. 

“I usually have a spare potion or two to return home. I just forgot to have Namine make some more of them this trip. So I am going to go ahead and head back first and return with more,” Demyx said before picking out a potion from the crate. 

Unlike the first potion that had liquid that was orangish-red, this was a bluish-purple. Demyx then walked over to the water and first took off his shirt. He then quickly turned around and stared at everyone. “I know the lighting in here isn’t the greatest, but could you two ladies please look away again?” 

Kairi closed her eyes and quickly turned the other way after his statement. Xion did the same just as quick, but sent a quick glare to her brother first. “I told you I can look away on my own. Don’t need you to cover my eyes for me.” 

“Sure, I’ll still be watching you though,” Ienzo replied as he crossed his arms, causing Xion to sighing over dramatically. 

Demyx on the other hand, still with his back to everyone, too off the rest of the clothes he had one and tossed them to the side. Once he did that he opened up the potion and drank it. He waited a few seconds before jumping into the water. It was silent for a moment as the guys stared at the water, with the girls carefully peaking over their shoulders. The water was still for a moment before Demyx burst out from underneath. 

He smiled before leaning backwards and raising his tail up out of the water. “See? That’s all there is too it.”

“Fascinating,” Ienzo commented, his eyes transfixed on Demyx’s tail that was just legs moments ago. 

Xion, now looking back around, stepped a bit closer to the water’s edge. “Wow, your tail is so beautiful. If I can ask, how many different colors can a tail be? I’ve only seen now two different shades of blue and Riku’s silvery-purple.”

“Thanks! There are all sorts of colors for merfolks tails. Shades of blue and green are the most common though, but there are plenty of others with different colors,” Demyx explained. 

“I know I should not pry on this, but I have to say I am impressed by the power of such a thing. The potion that is. I never thought there was such magic as powerful as that,” Ienzo commented as he looked at Demyx's tail carefully. 

"I'll give those compliments to my sister then," Demyx said as he swam around a little, getting use to having his tail back. "I'll be back in a few. Don't get too bored guys." 

Demyx dove down and vanished from sight. It grew quiet in the cave as everyone began to wait. In that time though Sora found himself staring at Vanitas again. He thought now was probably a good time to try and talk to his long, lost older brother. 

Vanitas turned to look at Sora as he approached, giving a friendly smile. "So…Sora… You're my little brother." 

Sora smiled back, but did not verbally answer. Instead he wrapped his arms around Vanitas and gave him a tight squeeze. Without even realizing it, tears were forming in his eyes. He knew why though. It made sense that he would become emotional upon hugging his brother he thought he would never ever meet.

"I guess from what I've noticed, you're a big hugger," Vanitas joked as he returned the hug.

"That's not a bad thing is it?" Sora asked, tilted his head up to look at Vanitas.

"Nah, it's just I haven't… well you know, hugged anyone for 18 years. But it's not a problem at all."

Sora grinned as he tightened his grip around Vanitas. "That's good to hear then! Cause it would suck if I never got to hug you."

"Just don't choke the breath out of me, or I'll have to return the favor" Vanitas replied, giving Sora an equally tighten hug.

A moment passed before Sora smiled brightly again. "I can't wait! When we get back home, mom and dad will be so surprised."

Vanitas shifted as he let go of Sora, warranting Sora's attention to look at his older brother. Vanitas sighed, lowering his eyes and looking off to the side. He had tried not to think too hard about his parents over the past 18 years, mainly because he thought he would never see them again. After a few years of being in captivity, he gave up on his hopes to ever get back home to them. But all of that had changed now. He was going back home. He would be reunited with his family and finally get to relax for real. It was a bit odd and strange still even though he had gotten this far. 

As he stayed there Xion walked up to his side. She placed her hand on his arm, giving him some reassurance about the situation. "You're going to be all right Vani. You're finally going home. You're happy right?"

"I guess…" Vanitas mumbled. "It's just a lot to process." 

"You'll be fine. This is…" Xion suddenly trailed off, finding it hard to say her words. She pressed her lips together before closing her eyes. She let out a slow breath as she dropped her hand to her side. Finally after a moment, she was able to continue. "This is what you always wanted right? To go home? To be free?"

"Yeah… I mean at first. But then… I stopped thinking about that. I… I gave up on that. And plus…" Vanitas looked to Xion, staring her in the eyes. Once a few seconds had passed he changed his focus to Ienzo, who was standing quietly off to the side. 

His wavering expressing turned to a smirk as he walked over closer to Ienzo. Vanitas wrapped his arms around the man and pulled their faces closer together. "Hey man, you gotta stop being so shy. Join in the conversation already."

Ienzo's body tensed up. He tried to move away, but Vanitas had tight hold on him. He tried to keep himself calm, but having Vanitas so close to him wasn't what he was use to. There was always that glass that separated them. There was always a wall blocking them. But now that was over. They could be close and not have anything to keep them from being close. Ienzo could feel his feelings inside stir as he continued to remain quiet.

"Hmm," Vanitas hummed happily. "Though your shyness is also pretty cute. So either way it's fine." 

Ienzo now used all of his strength to pull away from Vanitas. He could hear the faint chuckles from the remaining four in the room. "Can you go through one day without teasing like that?" 

Vanitas smiled softly before it slowly started to fade. "Well… it's our first time being able to be close… and probably the last time we will get with one another. So if I wanna extra tease you, I think I can."

"Why don't you tease Xion more then?" Ienzo asked, trying to scowl, but he couldn't truly feel angry. 

"Cause you're easier to tease. It's much more fun, Vanitas taunted. 

"It's true Iezno," Xion added. "You get flustered over the simplest things from Vanitas."

"Now don't you start in on this too Xion!" Iezno exclaimed, feeling cornered by his sister and best friend.

While the other three watched the three of them tease and taunt back and forth, Sora smiled largely. He saw how well Vanitas got along with the others. These two humans really did mean a whole lot to Vanitas, and then Sora could see why Vanitas seemed a little worried before. 

He would be leaving them. After eighteen years of being with them, becoming a close friend, he would be leaving. He would go back home deep under the water and would not get to talk with them again. Though Sora started to wander if Vanitas would ever want to return to the surface. He knew he would have to ask him about that and then ask Demyx of course for the potion. But that was something for another time to think on. 

After a few minutes Demyx burst through to the surface. He smiled at everyone before placing a case, similar to the one Sora had, on the ground. 

"Okay I'm back and made sure to bring an extra one for Vanitas," Demyx said.

Everyone looked to Demyx and then down at the case. At first no one moved but then Sora decided to be the one to check it out. He opened it up and there were three potions sitting inside, all the same color as the one Demyx drank before.

"Okay let me quickly explain. Obviously gotta take off the clothes first. Once you drink the potion, wait a bit 'till your legs start to feel a bit heavy and tingly. Then jump into the water and wait. It only takes a few more seconds after that."

"Okay," Riku answered. "Then let's do this."

Sora and Vanitas nodded, both ready to head back. But before Sora picked up a potion, he walked over first to Ienzo and Xion. He waited a moment before he finally spoke up to them. He had carefully thought over his words and finally knew what to say.

"Thank you guys. For… you know not stopping us. It means a lot to me."

He truly was thankful to them. There was nothing else to it but that. He had taken a serious chance to trust them and it worked out. They were in fact nice, good hearted humans intent on helping. Sora couldn't have felt more relieved at that time. Though he knew their choice had to be hard for them. They were going against their father's work. Giving up all he had been researching in order to save their friend they made because of that same research. 

"You're welcome Sora. I'm really glad we got to help," Xion replied. "And I'm glad we got to meet."

When Sora looked over yo Ienzo, he nodded back, giving a small smile in return. "It was a pleasure. I promise even with this magnificent knowledge we've learned tonight, we will not tell anyone but one another. But what we have learned is truly something amazing." 

Riku, noticing the conversation, breathed in before deciding to head over there. He still wasn't too happy with what had happened, but he learned that Xion and Iezno in the end were good people. That was the one, most important thing he learned out of everything. 

He took a moment to also give his thanks, and Xion and Ienzo returned it just the same with the kindness they had given Sora. After that Sora, Riku and Vanitas stood at the edge to the water. The girls kindly looked away as Sora undressed while Vanitas and Riku removed the lab coats.

The three of them downed their potions and waited. It wasn't long before the strange feeling of heaviness set in. Without missing a beat, they all jumped into the water one after another. At first Sora held his breather, a weird reflex from being human he figured. But after a moment he could feel the change going through. It was faster than he thought and before he realized it, he had his tail back. He let go of the breath he held and was thankful to be able to breathe under water again.

As Sora smiled happily about the potion working, he almost didn't notice the hand on his shoulder. When he turned, his smile only grew even more. Riku was looking right at him, giving him a happy grin in return. Sora lunged at Riku, tackling into his chest. He held him tightly, never losing the smile on his face.

The world around him seemed to fade away. Once again it felt like it was just him and Riku. They were the only two there and they could just relax in each other's arms. The relief that Sora had was more than he could explain. It was true only a had passed, but it felt so much longer to him. But it was over. Finally he would return home with Riku and things would be back to the way they were. 

Though he started to think maybe it would be more than just that. On his short journey, he really felt his much Riku meant to him. It was a feeling he had always known since he was young, but it was hard for him to explain. But Riku knew at least. They both knew their feelings for one another. And this adventure seemed to bring out those feelings more than ever before. Neither of them were happy with what had happened, but then ending result they were perfectly fine with. Happy and reunited.

The clearing of someone's throat dragged them out of their peaceful biss. Sora looked behind him to see Vanitas. His arms were crossed and he had a rather large smirk across his face.

"As cute as it looks, save the makeout for later."

Sora scrunched up his nose, glaring at his brother. With a quick glance he saw thar Riku also was giving the same angry glare to Vanitas. Their angry looks only made him laugh more. 

"Come on guys, we gotta let the others know we're back to normal now," Vanitas said before swimming back up towards the surface. 

Riku and Sora watched him go before looking at one another. Sora let out a quick sigh. "You think he will continue to tease us like that?"

Surprisingly to Sora, Riku laughed. "I guess so. He is your big brother after all. But teasing was something that you're already used to." Riku gave a quick peck on Sora's cheek before heading back up to the surface. 

"Don't you start up on it!" Sora shouted before swimming after him.

The journey had come to a close. All of it still fresh in Sora's mind. But it was over. All that was left to say the final goodbye to everyone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah lol. I cant ever end this story. I'm hoping the next chapter will be the final. But who knows anymore lol. Thanks for reading though!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The FINAL chapter is here! I finally managed it! Whew that took me longer than I thought, but also not as long. I am glad I finally could do this. Let's get to it now!

When Sora and Riku popped their heads out of the water, they saw everyone else watching carefully. Sighed of relief came to each of the human's faces as they saw that everything had worked. After a moment of happiness, a moment of silence fell over everyone. No one knew what to say right away as now the merfolk would be returning home.

The journey had felt much longer than it really was. It only had been about a day since everything transpired. Maybe it was just a little over a day, but none of that mattered to anyone. What did matter was the journey itself that had happened.

Sora was most happy from this. Not only did he find the courage to come and find Riku, but he pushed himself to go to places he never thought he would go. He did things that he never imagined doing. He went to the human world. He tasted their food, wore their clothes, and even made friends.

Suddenly Sora remembered one last thing he needed to do. He looked over to Kairi and smiled at her. “Hey Kairi?”

“Yeah Sora?” Kairi asked him.

“I gotta say, thank you so much for wanting to help me out. I don’t think I would have been able to do it without you,” Sora replied as he bowed his head slightly.

Suddenly an arm was wrapped around his shoulder. Sora looked to the side to see Demyx smiling at him. “Don’t forget to also thank me, buddy! ‘Cause Kairi is my friend don’t forget. If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be here at all. Now come on, where’s my thanks?”

Sora laughed a little. “Okay okay, thank you again Demyx.”

“So this is really it…” Vanitas muttered aloud as he looked to Xion and Ienzo.

The three of them kept their eyes locked on one another, and from the sadden gazes on their faces, everyone knew that this was a hard farewell. The finally time that they would probably ever see each other. At least that was the general assumption.

“We know Vani, but… but maybe we can see each other again sometime?” Xion suggested, holding on to the little piece of hope she still had.

Vanitas pondered the thought of it for a moment. Trying to think about how it could work, but nothing was coming up in his head. Nothing that would work anyways. “But how would we even do that? I can’t come back onto the land, your father may see and grow suspicious. That would be too risky.”

“We could have a meeting location. Not here… but maybe…” Ienzo trailed off, starting to think of all the possibilities. “What if we were to meet on the coast on the northside? That’s far enough from any place father may look.”

“I guess… I guess it could work…” Vanitas replied. A smile then crossed his face. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s try for… next week at… 4pm? That way it gives enough time for your father to hopefully cool down from everything.”

Xion smiled back. “Yes! I think that can totally work! I can’t wait now.”

Vanitas’s smile slowly morphed into a smirk as he swam closer to the edge of the cave floor. He got up as close as he could against it to be closer to Xion and Ienzo. “You don’t have to wait though.”

“What?” Xion asked.

Before she could ask anything further, Vanitas jumped forward a slight bit. He grabbed her then fell back into the water, causing her to let out a shriek of surprise. Everyone stared in wide-eyed surprise at what Vanitas had just done, but he thankfully quickly surfaced after the splash. Xion was now clinging to Vanitas for safely, but as soon as she realized they weren’t underwater she glared harshly at Vanitas.

“Vani! What was that for?!” She tried to sound angry at him, but everyone could see that she was trying to hold back laughter.

“What?” Vanitas asked, trying to sound innocent. “You wanted to see me again. So I brought you in for a closer look.”

Xion puffed her cheeks out Vanitas, annoyed at his little stunt he had pulled. But it faded away from her face and she let her arms moved around Vanitas to hug him once more. Vanitas returned the gesture, running a hand through her hair.

After a second though, his eyes moved up onto Ienzo. The iconic smirk returned to his face. Immediately Ienzo backed away from the water’s edge, shaking his head vigorously He knew exactly what Vanitas was thinking.

“No way! I will not be dragged into such childish antics,” Ienzo said waving his arms in front of his face.

“Aw come on Ienzo Why do you gotta be such a downer and party pooper,” Vanitas pouted. His pout was rather over exaggerated, sticking out his bottom lip and everything. But even with that Ienzo refused to give in.

“I said no! I am not about to let you drag me into the water,” Ienzo said, staying stubborn on the topic. “Besides… I am not in a mode to get soaks. Xion did you forget these lab coats are expensive?”

Xion laughed at her brother. “You’re worrying to much. It’s just water after all. And it isn’t freezing cold, it’s perfectly fine.”

“Still. It is an undignified thing. I will not join part in it,” Ienzo replied as he crossed his arms.

Vanitas turned to Xion, looking at her with a sad look. “Why does he have to be such a baby?”

“I don’t know, he just might be a scaredy cat,” Xion added, going along with the tease she saw Vanitas was doing.

“No no, I see what you are trying to do. It isn’t going to work,” Ienzo replied as he stepped back again.

Ienzo tensed up as he felt someone grabbed his arms from behind. He looked back to see Kairi, giving a cheeky grin. Ienzo had completely forgotten Kairi, Demyx, Sora, and Riku were ever in the area still. He looked at her, then swung his attention back to Xion and Vanitas. All of them were giving the same cheeky grin.

“Xion and Vanitas are right,” Kairi said as she started to push Ienzo towards the water. “You’re being a party pooper. You should join them for the fun of it.”

Ienzo tried to resist. He tried to move out of the way, but surprisingly Kairi’s grip was stronger than he expected. He slowly was being pushed closer to the edge of the water and he could see all the others snickering at him.

“This is not a laughing matter!” Ienzo shouted, but it was to no avail. No one was going to help him. They all wanted to keep enjoying Ienzo’s childish reactions.

Even though he kept trying to break free, he was pushed closer and closer to the edge to the water. Just as he got in range, Xion and Vanitas went to grab him and yanked him down into the water. He yelled as the water splashed onto him. Before he could get a good grip of anything he felt Xion and Vanitas hold onto him. They pulled him close and when Ienzo opened his eyes he saw Vanitas right up in front of him, causing his cheeks to redden right away.

“Serious…” his sighed heavily.

“Gotta say Ienzo, the more you blush, the more tempted I am to keep teasing you,” Vanitas laughed slyly.

The cheeks on Ienzo’s cheeks reddened even nomre, he did his best to keep his cool. That was a task that was getting harder and harder fort him to do though. He kept quiet this time though as he turned his head away. He was not going to continue to let Vantias get to him like this.

Vanitas laughed at Ienzo before looking back to Xion. "I wish you could be that easy to tease."

"Maybe you just have to try harder, hah!" Xion taunted.

But before Vanitas could say anything back, there was another splash of water and Kairi had now joined the party. Thankfully the pool of water that was within the cave was large enough to have all of them without it being crowded. Everyone just laughed and smiled, even Ienzo couldn’t help himself at this point.

With a few more laughs and chuckles, a splash fight broke out among the group. No one remembered who started it, all they knew was that it was fun and enjoyable. Everyone swam around the small cave pool, trying to splash while also avoid. It was the most fun any of them had in recent times. It wasn’t going to last forever, that much was obvious. But the time they all had now together was what mattered most.

* * *

Sora and Riku rested peacefully in bed. The tips of their tails wrapped around one another as they continued to sleep quietly. Sora had his head rested up against Riku’s chest while Riku had his arms holding around Sora.

It had been a week now since Sora had gone on his adventure to rescue Riku. Since they Riku and Sora barely left each other’s side. They already knew what their feelings were before, but now they had felt stronger than ever. Neither of them wanting to ever lose or be separated from the other again.

Sora stirred slightly, causing Riku to also wake up. They slowly opened up their eyes and locked on to one another. Sweat and kind smiles stretched on their faces. “Good morning Riku.”

“Morning Sora,” Riku replied back as he leaned forward to brushed his forward against Sora’s. “You sleep well? No nightmares?”

“Of course. You know there’s never any nightmares when I know you’re right here,” Sora replied as he reached up to run his hand through Riku’s hair. It was still short, which was hard to get use to. Sora did miss Riku’s long, flowing hair. But he still found this short haired look to be just as good.

“I know. I always wanna be sure though,” Riku whispered as he lowered his face to be more aligned with Sora’s. They brushed their faces closer, and gently pressed their lips against one another.

They held like that for a few seconds, or they would have if someone else had not chuckled. They turned their heads quickly to see Vantias in the doorway. His arms were crossed, but a huge grin was over his face.

“Aw, don’t let me ruin the fun. It was getting so cute, I couldn’t help but laugh. Laugh in a good way, cause it was cute,” Vanitas explained, though the cheek grin never dropped off his face.

“Vanitas!” Sora shouted. “How long were you watching us!?”

Vanitas shrugged. “I don’t know. But don’t mind me, I’m just in the background here.”

Sora sighed, rolling his eyes. He turned to Riku and gave him an exasperated look. “Maybe we should stay at your place.”

Riku laughed in reposned. “He would still follow after us. I don’t think there is any way to escape from your brother trying to torment us.”

“You’ve got that right. I’ve got 18 years of teasing and torment to make up for,” Vnaitas said as he swam close and ruffled Sora’s hair.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to pile it on so much. Give us some breathing space,” Sora said, letting out a laugh. He tried to get Vantias’s hand off him, but Vnaitas ended up tackled Sora backwards to the floor.

“Nah, that isn’t fun. I prefer to tease as much as possible,” Vanitas stated.

By this point Riku couldn’t help himself, he let out a few laughed before regaining his composure. “Is there anything else that you wanted, Vanitas?”

“Well not really anything I wanted actually. Just an announcement” Vanitas saida s he kept his hold on his younger brother. “I was going out later today… to see Xion and Ienzo finally.”

Sora stop squirming. He looked up at Vanitas to see his mix of melancholy and hopefulness. It still was a surprise to Sora that a week had already gone by and now it was time for Vanitas to go see his two closest friends. But within that week Vanitas had gotten adjusted to back home. Their parents were more than overwhelmed when they saw him. The entire next day had been spent reconnecting. But even with finally being home, Sora could see that Vanitas felt a bit lonely. He could only hope seeing Ienzo and Xion again would bring his older brother some joy again.

“Do you want me to go with you later?” Sora finally asked.

He knew Vanitas would pretty much be fine on his own. But there was one thing that Sora had discovered and had to now consider with Vanitas. After 18 years of being trapped in a tank, Vanitas had gotten use to an enclosed space. Now being back in the ocean… he had developed a little bit of agoraphobia. The wide open spaces and endless land out before him overwhelmed him at times. It was something he could overcome, but it was taking him time to get used to it again.

“Yeah,” Vanitas replied shortly. Even though he preferred to have someone by his side in case he had a panic attack, he wasn’t too fond of having to ask. But he was happy to have his brother want to come along with him.

* * *

Sora and Vanitas swam through the waters, making their way to the human town. They were going to swim all the way out to the northern coast of the town. They only hoped that there wouldn’t be any other humans there besides the ones they were looking for.

Vanitas kept quiet as he occasionally glanced side to side, taking in the vast underwater world. A small shiver was sent through him, causing him to place his hands on his arms. Sora quickly took notice of this and moved closer to his brother.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I just keep forgetting how big the world is. It is beautiful though,” Vanitas commented as they swam on.

“Hmm yeah it is,” Sora added back. “So you excited? To see them again?”

“Of course. More than anything. I just hope they are able to make it.”

“I’m sure they’ll be there. Though Vanitas, I got a question,” Sor asked, lowering his voice slightly.

Vanitas moved his head to look at Sora. “What is it?”

“If you really care for them, why not stay up on the surface? I know there would be a complication with Even, but I’m sure you guys could figure something out.”

Vanitas let out a long, heavy sigh. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Cause even though I care for Ienzo and Xion… the surface world… it isn’t for me. I know Even never meant any true harm, but being captured so young and observed for 18 years taints a merfolks view majorly. Humans… I can’t stand them… aside from Ienzo and Xion that is. And maybe that friend of Demyx. She seems cool.”

“Oh… I see,” Sora frowned, feeling bad he had brought up that question.

“Don’t worry about it though. I was talking with Namine though. Seeing if she could make her potions work in reverse… for humans.”

Sora’s eyes lit up. “Oh! I get it. So you can let them visit you down here, and see what our world is like. Right?”

Vanitas smiled slightly and nodded. “That’s right. I thought it would be a nice thing to do for them. But Namine says it isn’t ready yet. So maybe next time.”

Soon the two of them arrived at the northern coast. They could see the sunlight dancing across the surface above them. Sora smiled at his brother, seeing that his expression and lighten now that they were there.

“I’ll stay back here, You go up there and have fun,” Sora said.

Vanitas turned, giving his usual smirk. “Oh I will.” With that he swam up to break the water’s surface.

Sora couldn’t help himself as he continued to smile. Though things had changed now since his adventure, with is brother being back, things were falling into place. Things wouldn’t be the same again, but he was glad. He had grown and learned so much in his short adventure. And even if he was scared at times, it all worked out in the end. That was all that mattered in the end, was being happy with those he cared about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that was a good ending. I tried my best to wrap it all up as I could.  
> Thank you all SO MUCH for reading this story! I am glad so many of you liked it, and I hope you check out my other stories as well! Thanks again!


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